Toyota and Honda have at times been called boring: Honda by its own engineers, Toyota more famously by a chairman descended from the company’s founder.
But while they may not have the luster of, say, European sports cars, these two Japanese brands have enviably high resale values. That means they retain more of their purchase prices than any other brand —and the same is true of their premium brands — Toyota’s Lexus, and Honda’s luxury Acura brand.
It has been this way for years.
Toyota has topped Kelley Blue Book’s Best Resale Value list eight times since 2014, including the last four consecutive years. Lexus has won the group’s award for luxury cars five times.
Lexus also toppedthe luxury category for JD Power’s residual awards list. Honda took the mainstream category.
Pricing and production discipline, a reputation for quality and durability and a few other factors keep these brands at the top.
Another key for the automakers is that Toyota and Honda listen carefully to customers and try to build only what they think people will buy.
“The market tends to have much greater demand than Toyota supplies up front, which keeps resale high, which keeps consumers happy, and the cycle continues on and on,” said Tyson Jominy, vice president of data analytics at J.D. Power.
But so much has changed in the auto industry in the past several years that the very strengths that have helped these brands succeed may be holding them back — and may knock them off the podium.