Buying a car in Turkey is a well discussed topic. It's also common knowledge that second hand cars are very expensive. This article takes a very brief look at how new car prices compare between the UK and Turkey, and also how the car value depreciates over time.

Buying New - UK vs. Turkey

^{_{Figure 1. The list price of cars in both Turkey and the UK, prices gathered from manufacturer websites.
GBP prices converted to TL at a rate of 2.4 (April 2009)}}

Figure 1 above shows that the list prices of cars varies very little between the UK and Turkey, however it should be noted that UK prices are heavily discountable.

Depreciation after 3 years - UK vs. Turkey

^{Figure 2. How well the cars have kept their value after approximately 3 years.
Average prices have been taken for the same (or nearest model) from Sahibinden.com, and autotrader.co.uk
GBP prices converted to TL at a rate of 2.4 (April 2009)}

Figure 2. is more interesting reading. Using on-line second hand websites, we looked at the average price of 6 different cars after 3 years. The findings confirm just how well Turkish cars keep their value. On average, after three years, a Turkish car is worth about two-thirds (66%) of the original list price. By comparison, the same car in the UK is worth only 45% of the original list price. Again an element of this can be explained by the more discountable list prices in the UK.

Depreciation over 9 years - UK vs. Turkey

The next couple of graphics explore the depreciation in more depth. Looking at just two of the 6 cars, but this time showing the average value for the cars of differing ages, up to 9 years old (2000 Model).

^{Figure 3. Average depreciation over several years for a Renault Clio.
Average prices have been taken for the same (or nearest model) from Sahibinden.com, and autotrader.co.uk
GBP prices converted to TL at a rate of 2.4 (April 2009)}

^{Figure 4. Average depreciation over several years for a Ford Focus.
Average prices have been taken for the same (or nearest model) from Sahibinden.com, and autotrader.co.uk
GBP prices converted to TL at a rate of 2.4 (April 2009)} 

Just looking at the "9 Years Old" values across both graphs, in Turkey, 9 year old cars are still worth a massive 47% of their original value - UK cars are already down to this point after about 3 years! A "9 Years Old" UK car is worth just 15% of it's original list price.