The used L663 market is absolutely plummeting right now. The fact that there are nearly 2,500 new copies sitting unsold at US dealers is a primary factor. V8’s and X trims are holding out a little bit better, but not by much.

The insanity of appreciating Slovakian Defenders is over (for now, at least). Hope everyone saw this coming and got off the carousel if that’s what you needed.

Anyone who wants a Defender today can be severed by the new marker, and likely at a discount from MSRP.

 

I'm wondering if that search result is like the Land Rover vehicle search page, where it includes customer-ordered Defenders.

I know some have started appearing on dealer lots recently (seems like mostly 130's), but 2438 seems like a bit much when people are still waiting on orders.

 

In my view, it didn’t gather much interest due to the 6-seater configuration. Has to be the worst setup I’ve seen in a Defender. When I saw my first video of one, I couldn’t imagine who would go for that seating arrangement. Very weird to lose the console and have someone up against the driver like that. Wouldn’t bid on that at any price.

 

It‘s a fair caveat! Some of them are sold, and, likewise, some dealers’ arrived or arriving inventory has not been cataloged yet. I have deep personal experience in the auto industry and can assure my hypothesis is accurate.

One year ago an L663 basically appreciated a few grand off the lot. Now that’s inverted and the drive-off depreciation curve is about 5-10K.

In addition to the new copies, there are about 1,000 unsold used around the US as well.

 

Didn't even sell! That's exactly my point. A car is never going to be an investment grade (with exceptions we all know about, such as rare, collectibles, supercars, etc). You will almost always guaranteed to "loose" money, but you get in return the driving experience, design of the car, etc... I get that. The point is how much money you will "loose" when trading in (for the same or other model), and, in that front, I think we all can agree LRs are no Toyotas in holding value. For a little while though, Defenders were crazy appreciating, I dare to say even more than Toyos. That reality is now gone and the famous LR depreciation is coming hard IMO. That said, I love my Defender and have no intention of selling it anytime soon - especially with a steep depreciation ladder. Hell I might even keep it past factory warranty.

 

I have a feeling that a lot of that 2,400 are orders. My car that is coming in 2-3 weeks is listed as for sale on the dealer site (conformed with the same VIN). I asked aobut it, and they told me that that's just the way their system works. I'm not saying that dealers can still charge over sticker for walk-ins (non-order), but I'm going to guess that it's not quite doom and gloom yet.

 

Used to own a GLE450 which I got new for $90k loaded with tech in Sept 2021. This past month I got an email from Carvana telling me it was now valued at $46k and losing $2500 per month in depreciation. That’s a steep drop off imho, so I’m thankful we sold it in January ‘23 for $70k.

We bought our Defenders because we like them and plan to keep them for a long time.

My wife has a 6 seater with cloth roof and she loves it. The jumper seat is always down but we’ve had it up whenever we’re buying food to go or when we want our dog in the front bench without having to go back and forth. She has told me we’re never trading it in.

I looked for mine for a while, making sure I got everything I wanted and then some more. Ended up with a V8 CE and I love it, so for now we’re good.

Guess what I’m trying to say is that if you got a Defender to flip it, there’s no way to predict the market as supply chain constraints start going down. Will it level off? Sure, everything usually does. But we’ve enjoyed the heck out of them so far.

Oh and between both Defenders we’ve had less than 5 issues to resolve in almost 2 years of ownership whereas the GLE had 15 issues in 18 months.

 

Both my Lightning and my Bronco showed up on my dealer's website as available inventory because everything built and shipped to them and many other Ford dealers automatically populates on their websites via a direct feed from Ford. My local Land Rover dealer shows tons of available inventory. When you actually take a look, most of it is at their sister dealerships down in southern california. You really can't look at a site like Car Gurus or similar sites and draw any meaningful conclusions, and certainly not the ones you did.

 

It's a directional data point. Another one is the change in this number over time, as the externalities you mention would be held constant.

You are certainly entitled to your perspective, but I am confident in mine!

Go to a dealer and get a trade-in quote, and we can see who is correct!

 

Ok, so you’re directionally wrong, but at least your externalities are holding constant. Or maybe you’re holding your externalities? I’m sure your deep, personal experience helps too.

Glad we cleared that up.