10 Audis With The MOST Depreciation

Intro

When researching a new car to buy, many people fixate on the price of the car. Some folks will haggle for days trying to knock a few extra bucks from the MSRP to get the best deal possible. That is all good, however, most people tend to forget about one of the most expensive aspects of buying a car. That is depreciation. If you buy a $100,000 car and five years later it is only worth $30,000, that is a massive loss. Suddenly that $2,000 you were able to negotiate off the MSRP doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, does it? On the flip side, if you buy a car for $1 million and five years later it is still worth $1 million, how much did it really cost you? You could argue that the far more expensive car was actually the least expensive to own. Insurance, interest, and maintenance aside of course.

So, with this in mind, we decided to look at the current lineup of Audi models to see which hold their value best, and which are going to make you lose your shirt. We used the car research site, iseecars for the data. We looked at every new Audi model and found the expected 5-year depreciation rate. For example, if a $100,000 car has a 55 percent depreciation rate, it will lose $55,000 of value in 5 years. Keep in mind the values at the end of five years are not adjusted for inflation in our discussion.

For the sake of comparison, the Audi RS 3 is the slowest depreciating vehicle in the current lineup with a 40 percent depreciation rate. The following is a list of the ten new Audi models that will depreciate the most in five years. We ranked them from bad to worse by depreciation percentage. One thing is immediately obvious when you look at the data. If you want to avoid massive depreciation losses, avoid the e-tron models. Read on to find out why.

10. RS Q8 58.8%

The Audi RS Q8 packs some impressive performance figures. 591 horsepower. 0 to 60 in 3.7 seconds. And the V8 sound coming from the dual oval RS exhaust tips is intoxicating. However, you better really love this thing, because it is going to be a bit painful for you when it comes time to sell it. The SUV is expensive to buy in the first place with a base price of $125,800. With a 5-year depreciation rate of 58.8 percent, the vehicle will lose $73,970 in value. This is roughly $1,200 every single month just in depreciation.

9. SQ8 58.9%

The Audi SQ8 is one rung below the RS Q8 in the performance department, but it has a depreciation rate that is nearly the same. And the SQ8 is still an expensive vehicle with a starting MSRP of $96,600. Five years later you will have lost $56,897 of that value. Your nearly six figure SUV is now worth $39,703. This is great news for the used car buyer looking for a deal, but the original owner is not going to be happy.

8. RS 7 59.1%

The RS 7 is the first non-SUV on our list. And we love this car. 621 horsepower and a 0 to 60 mph time of just over 3 seconds is thrilling. Especially when it comes in such a handsome wrapper. But this car is going to cost you a lot of money. The first hit is the starting MSRP of $127,800. The second hit comes five years later after it has lost a whopping $75,530 in value. Let’s say you took out a 5-year loan at 6 percent interest for the full $127,800. You will have paid a little more than $148K for a car that is now worth a little more than $52K. Ouch.

7. S8 59.2%

It is a shame that so many of our favorite Audi models are on this list. But if you want to look on the positive side, you can get some remarkable deals on wonderful models that are just five years old. The S8 sedan is an understated performance machine that will take you and your passengers quickly and comfortably anywhere you want to go. But, like other models on this list so far, the S8 is expensive and combined with the high depreciation rate, makes it a tough purchase to justify. With a $123,400 MSRP and a 59.2 percent depreciation rate, the S8 will lose over $73K in 5 years.

6. Q7 59.3%

The Audi Q7 is far less expensive than the previous Audi models on our list. That helps take some of the sting out of the 59.3 percent depreciation rate. Still, at $60,500 the Q7 will lose almost $36K in five years. From a dollar perspective, that is not as eye popping as what we saw with the RS 7 and S8. But no matter how you slice it, losing that percentage of value is tough to take.

5. A8 60.3%

As we enter the top five on our list we begin to see vehicles that have depreciation rates over 60 percent. The A8 is expensive at $90,900 and combined with the 60.3 percent depreciation rate that makes it an expensive purchase in the long run. That $90,900 car will be worth just over $36K in the year 2029. The good news is you get to drive a terrific luxury sedan for five years. And if we are honest, most luxury sedans get hammered in the depreciation department so the A8 is not totally out of line. But when you look at the numbers on paper, it really makes you think twice.

4. Q4 e-tron Sportback 66.6%

From here on out it is nothing but e-tron models. You may love these for their technology, but the fact of the matter is, you are going to get absolutely crushed in the depreciation department. The Q4 e-tron Sportback starts at $58,200. And it loses a staggering $38,761 of that in five years, leaving it with a value of less than twenty grand. Even if you factor in gas savings and lower maintenance costs, that loss is a tough pill to swallow. Unfortunately, the news for EV fans only gets worse from here.

3. RS e-tron GT / e-tron GT 69.2%

From a dollar loss perspective, the e-tron GT models are the worst in the entire Audi lineup. If you hate money, these are the cars to buy. There is however a large footnote here. These cars are often very heavily discounted, so no one is paying close to MSRP. But even with incentives, these vehicles make ownership expensive due to massive depreciation. Assume you bought an RS e-tron GT at the $147,100 MSRP. In five years it would have lost an incredible $101,793 of value.  That is about $1,700 a month, or $56 every single day. Just in depreciation.

2. Q4 e-tron 70.6%

If you like the regular Q4 e-tron more than the Sportback, we have bad news. The depreciation is even worse on this model. It is predicted to be a mind-numbing 70.6 percent loss in five years. The $55,200 all-electric SUV would be worth a little more than $16,000. That is a brutal hit, but incredibly it is not the worst.

1. Q8/SQ8 e-tron/e-tron Sportback 70.7%

There is a four-way tie at the top for the worst depreciating Audi, and they are all the variants of the Q8 e-tron model. From a dollar perspective, the worst hit will come from the most expensive model, the SQ8 Sportback e-tron which carries a $92,600 MSRP. It will lose $65,468 worth of value. Again, if we assume you took out a 5-year loan at 6 percent for the full MSRP you would have paid $107,413. And your car would be worth $27,132 by the time you paid it off.

If you get any of these Audi e-tron models at a massive discount, and/or lease them as part of a special Audi program, then they might make a little more sense. But the fact remains that they lose value even faster than they can accelerate. And Audi is pushing for an all-EV lineup. What are the depreciation numbers going to look like when Audi sells nothing but EVs?

Images: Audi