When you take a look at used car depreciation across the board, most cars lose about half their value after five years. If you err on the side of caution and buy, say, a Jeep Wrangler, you can beat that trend. However, the car we just bought is on a completely different level to most off-road SUVs with a penchant to hold their value. If you’ve ever looked into buying one of these SUVs, you know just how expensive they are. In this video, Tommy goes over the details of TFL’s latest additon: a 2014 Toyota FJ Cruiser.
Here’s a bit of context for the uninitiated on this car. The FJ Cruiser originally debuted back in 2005, before entering the market a year later in the U.S. We received Toyota’s funky off-roader with underpinnings from the overseas Land Cruiser Prado until 2014. The one we bought is the last model year the FJ Cruiser existed in the U.S., though Toyota does still sell it in global markets including South America and the Middle East. For its last model year, this car started at around $27,000 and topped out around $36,000 for a fully-loaded version.
Yeah…they’re still incredibly expensive
So, how much did we pay for ours? A staggering amount, frankly, as these hold their value better than just about anything on the road right now. After six years and nearly 60,000 miles on the clock, we still shelled out $33,500 for this FJ Cruiser. That’s at the top end of what they blue book for, but even at the bottom end these still go for over $30,000 all day long. Of course, part of their value lies in their relative rarity to Toyota’s other SUVs like a 4Runner or a Sequoia. These were only sold for eight years in our market, and they weren’t exactly cheap to begin with. While it sold more than 55,000 units in its first two years, just 11,726 left dealer lots in 2014.
Part of their value also comes down to their quirky nature. This is a cult car, to some extent, which is also helping to keep their prices elevated. Check out the video below for all the interesting tidbits of this FJ and stay tuned for more videos coming soon!
