We just love the XC90 and who wouldn’t. This very popular 7 seater family wagon leads the market in design, comfort, features, safety and most importantly in this segment, fuel economy. Thanks to a very competitive used car market, the prices have dropped into the very affordable range. We are seeing good quality, low kilometre 2005, 2.5T examples selling for around $20000. They drive like a car (and a luxury one at that) and have the best boot/third row seat arrangement around. In fact, their rear seat setup has been copied by most manufacturers in their latest models. The diesel variants (from late 2006 onwards) are now available for less than $30000.
We can't get enough of them and they rocket out the door. They have been one of our biggest sellers for the last 3 years. As long as the vehicle has a good service history and is thoroughly inspected before purchase (hopefully with no issues), we don't think there is a better 7 seater used car buy for the family.
If you need a versatile family wagon with 5 seats, you can't go past the RX Lexus. Incredible luxury, great reliability, smooth, very quiet and extremely comfortable. Good examples are starting in the low $20000s. The most popular bracket recently has been the RX350 which started life in 2006. We have finally seen these example sell for under $30000 which we think is very good value.
The average car buyer would walk straight past an E Class Mercedes thinking that it was way out of their league. If only they knew the real story. You can buy a good kilometre 2003-2004 model E320 Elegance or Avantgarde for between $20000 and $30000. We just sold a 2004 model with 80000 kms for $26500. The buyer got a car that was around $125000 when new and has technology that most new cars still don't have. They are cheap to maintain (dont listen to the urban myths out there, they really are) and have very good fuel economy for a mid sized sedan. I’d rather one of these any day, than a 3 year old Commodore, Falcon, Camry or similar. You’ll get Sat Nav, power front seats with memory on both of them, parking sensors, auto lighting, rain sensing wipers, 5 star ANCAP safety rating, the lot. I also think they are still the best looking sedan on the market. In fact, I prefer this series to the recent model just launched. We have sold four of them this month and my guess is that they will continue to be one of our best sellers for a while to come.