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Monthly reviewAugust's best-selling models are the cheap end of the market
The list of best-selling models is the first thing a used car buyer looks at. In August Volkswagen Golf topped it, and eight of the ten models on the list fell below the month's median price of 9,900 €. The cheapest of them cost less than half of it. The dearer half of the month's 54,249 sales was spread across hundreds of models with no single dominant name, so the same month looks like two different markets depending on which end you look at.
OwnershipAn old car's repair limit is what it sells for
A repair quote arrives as a single figure, and it needs a second one beside it: what the car is worth right now. Cars under 3,000 € account for 21.9% of all used-car sales in Finland, and half of them change hands for less than 1,599 €. When a car is worth that much, one ordinary repair can exceed the price of the whole car. The question faces anyone who has been handed an estimate for an old car, and the answer is built from five points where the arithmetic usually goes wrong.
PricesUnder €6,000, a bigger car means a more-driven one
At the cheap end of the used car market, the choice is not a choice of price. The 3,000–5,999 € class saw 8,283 sales in August, and half of them landed between 3,690 € and 5,000 €. A small hatchback, an estate and a big German sedan all fit inside a band of little more than a thousand euros, and the price does not tell you which one you are looking at. The difference shows on the odometer: among the common models in the class, the most-driven is the Mercedes-Benz E, with a median reading of 435,087 km.
Buyer's guideChoose a first car by its mileage, not by its badge
In Finland a first car is usually bought with a few thousand euros, and the 3,000–5,999 € band accounts for 15.1% of all used-car sales. The money buys plenty of choice: 671 different models change hands at that price. The choice is only apparent, though, because inside the band the price says almost nothing about the car. The odometer does. Its median sits at 268,100 km, and between cars costing the same the extremes differ almost threefold.
ModelsThe Toyota Corolla’s price curve has a ten-year hole in it
The Toyota Corolla’s price ladder steps down tidily one model year at a time, until it breaks. A 2019 Corolla sold for 19,990 €, and the next model year down is 2008 at 4,800 €. The ten model years in between barely exist on the Finnish used market, and the model’s own median price of 6,900 € lands in the middle of that hole. It is a price at which a Corolla is almost never sold. 2,246 Corollas changed hands in Finland between 16 July and 14 September 2026, and they fall into two groups with little in common.
Buyer's guideA registration number shows the reading, age explains it
The photos, the mileage and the condition report in a listing are all written by the seller. A registration number brings the register alongside them: technical data, the next inspection window and the latest odometer reading recorded at a roadworthiness inspection (katsastus). None of those numbers means anything on its own, because they follow age: for cars first registered in 2021 the median recorded reading is 66,000 km, and for 2006 cars it is 253,000 km. The same reading is different news in a different year, and that difference is why the number is worth looking up.
ModelsThe generation sets a Mercedes-Benz C's price, not the badge
Make and model usually tell you roughly what price bracket a car sits in. The Mercedes-Benz C does not follow the rule. Under that one name, 2,001 cars changed hands between 13 July and 7 September 2026, and half of the prices actually paid fell between 3,950 € and 16,990 €. At the bottom end that buys a car built almost twenty years ago, at the top end one under ten years old. The median of 9,000 € sits between the two halves and describes neither.
Buyer's guideAn automatic costs kilometres, not euros
Choosing a gearbox feels like a matter of taste, and the price list makes it look like a small one. Once the budget is fixed between 10,000 € and 14,999 €, the median price of an automatic is 12,900 € and of a manual 12,490 €, and the median model year of the cars sold is 2016 in both cases. The difference sits elsewhere: the automatic reads 178,000 km on the odometer and the manual 138,000 km. This piece explains where the gap comes from, which models show it most sharply, and what the choice rules out.
Monthly reviewJuly's median price describes none of the best-selling models
Used car prices tend to be discussed as a single figure, and for July that figure is 11,480 €. Yet not one of the ten best-selling models actually changes hands at that price: eight of them sit below it and two above. Across July's 49,358 sales the top of the list is filled by old, high-mileage cars such as the Volkswagen Golf and the Skoda Octavia, while the more expensive half of the market is made up of newer SUVs and electric cars. The median falls between these two groups and describes neither.
OwnershipA car fails its inspection underneath, not on the dashboard
On the morning of the test, plenty of people wipe the lights clean and top up the screenwash. The failure almost always comes from somewhere the driver cannot see from the seat: axles, wheels and suspension accounted for 308,940 defects that caused a failure in the 2025 periodic inspections, more than any other category on the car. Brakes come second. Below are the five points where preparation most often goes to waste, and what you can do about each of them a week earlier. Most of them can be checked on your own drive without special tools.
Electric carsA used electric car's price reflects its age, not its fuel
The price tag on a used electric car looks nothing like the one on a petrol car. In July 50,612 cars changed hands in Finland, and the median price was 34,900 € for an electric car and 5,950 € for a petrol one. That gap does not measure what sits under the bonnet. The typical electric car sold was a 2023 model and the typical petrol car a 2009 model, so what stands side by side is a three-year-old car and a seventeen-year-old one.
OwnershipVehicle tax follows emissions and mass, not the price of the car
Two cars that cost the same can build up annual vehicle tax at different rates, because the sum takes no account of the purchase price. The tax is made up of a basic tax, which follows the car’s carbon dioxide emissions, and a driving power tax, which follows total mass and fuel type. According to the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency (Traficom), the lowest basic tax is 106.21 € a year, and it is paid by exactly the fuel type whose cars are the most expensive on the used market. Before the sale you can check the tax, on the day of sale the liability changes hands, and after that the tax runs one day at a time whether or not the car is driven.