What Really Drives Used Car Prices? Age and Mileage Trump Everything

By shrijeetverma13 · July 16, 2026

We analyzed thousands of used car listings to uncover which factors actually matter for resale value. Vehicle age and mileage dominate—newer cars and…

The analysis compared average Selling Price across different Accident History statuses and Owner counts. Two charts were generated: one showing average selling price for cars with no accidents versus those with accident history, and another showing how average selling price changes as the number of previous owners increases. Generally, cars with an accident history and cars with more previous owners tend to sell for less on average than accident-free, single-owner cars.

Mercedes-Benz SUVs command the highest average selling price at $21,457, based on 299 listings. Luxury SUVs and sedans dominate the top spots, with BMW SUV ($21,281), Audi SUV ($19,808), Mercedes-Benz Sedan ($19,279), and Audi Sedan ($18,893) rounding out the top 5.

Horsepower, Torque, and Engine Size all show very weak correlations with Selling Price. Torque has the strongest (but still weak) positive relationship at r = 0.091, followed by Horsepower at r = 0.080. Engine Size shows almost no relationship, with a slight negative correlation of r = -0.017. This suggests that none of these three mechanical specs are strong drivers of price on their own in this dataset — other factors likely play a bigger role in determining Selling Price.

GA stands out as the top location, having both the highest average selling price ($13,143) and the largest inventory volume (522 vehicles). This means GA not only sells vehicles at a premium but also handles the most inventory among all locations, making it a key hub in your dataset.

Selling price is strongly tied to both vehicle age and mileage. Newer vehicles (2024) average $35,424, while the oldest (2005) average just $883, showing a strong positive correlation (0.80) between year and price. Similarly, mileage has a strong negative effect: vehicles with 0-50k miles average $25,057, dropping sharply to just $502 for those with over 300k miles (correlation -0.68). Overall, prices rise consistently with newer model years and fall steadily as mileage increases.

Fuel efficiency shows only a weak connection to selling price overall (correlation of 0.129), meaning better mileage doesn't strongly command a premium across the board. However, Fuel Type does matter a lot for pricing: Electric vehicles average $21,928 compared to just $11,418 for Petrol vehicles, a gap of $10,510. So it's the type of fuel—not the efficiency rating—that has the bigger impact on price.

The analysis grouped vehicles by Body Type and Drivetrain combination to compare average Selling Prices and the number of vehicles in each group. A bar chart and data table were generated showing each combination (such as SUV+AWD or Sedan+FWD) ranked from highest to lowest average price, with the count of vehicles labeled on each bar to show how much data supports each price estimate.

A bar chart and box plot were generated comparing Selling Price across the three Service History categories (Full Service, Partial Service, No Service). The bar chart shows average selling price per category, while the box plot illustrates the full distribution and spread of prices within each group, helping visualize whether vehicles with better service history tend to command higher resale values.

The analysis breaks down the yearly percentage share of Automatic versus Manual transmissions for recent model years. A line chart tracks how each transmission type's share has moved year over year, while a stacked bar chart shows the full composition of transmission types for each year side by side. Together, these visuals make it easy to see whether automatic transmissions are becoming more dominant over time or whether manual transmissions are holding steady.

Using the IQR method, vehicles with unusually low mileage (39,112 or less) but high selling price (above $19,098) turned out to be very common — 950 vehicles fit this pattern, likely representing newer, well-priced, low-use cars. In contrast, only 2 vehicles had unusually high mileage (172,758+) combined with a high price, suggesting that high-mileage vehicles rarely retain premium pricing. A scatter plot highlights these anomalies against the full dataset, with color-coded categories showing 'Low Mileage/High Price' (crimson) and 'High Mileage/High Price' (royalblue) points relative to normal vehicles. A bar chart also breaks down which Make/Model combinations appear most frequently among these anomalies, helping identify which vehicle types tend to hold high resale value despite low usage.