August's best-selling models are the cheap end of the market

In brief

• The median prices of the ten best-selling models all fall between 4,490 € and 11,800 €, so the entire top of the list sits inside two price bands.
• The month's most-traded model is older and has covered more ground than the median car of the month: median model year 2010 against 2014, and a median odometer reading of 227,560 km against 187,000 km.
• The dealer share of sales climbs from 17.7% in the cheapest price band to 95.1% in the dearest, so the cheap end is in practice a private-seller market.
• Electric cars accounted for 5,446 sales, or 10.0% of the month, and their median price of 34,900 € is more than three times the median for the month as a whole.
• In Kainuu the median price was 3,900 € and the median odometer reading 286,178 km; in Uusimaa the figures were 15,490 € and 140,000 km.

Two different car markets in the same month

Half of August's sales fell between 3,500 € and 22,780 €. That spread is 194.7% of the median, meaning the upper quartile boundary is more than six times the lower one. The median price of 9,900 € is therefore a true figure that describes no car at all: there is no cluster around it, but two separate groups with the figure landing in the gap between them. The usual way to read a month is to look at the list of best-selling models, and that is precisely where this split is invisible.

The cheaper group is old stock. Across the month's sales the median model year is 2014 and the median odometer reading 187,000 km, and cars under 3,000 € changed hands 11,842 times, or 21.8% of all sales. That makes it the largest single price band of the month. The dearer group is effectively a different product: cars at 40,000 € and above had a median model year of 2024 and a median odometer reading of 38,000 km.

Nothing empty separates the two groups, but there are two centres of gravity. Volumes are highest in the cheapest band, fall to a trough of 6,217 sales in the 10,000–14,999 € band and then rise again: cars between 15,000 and 24,999 € accounted for 9,195 sales, or 16.9% of the month. The median lands just short of that trough.

On the best-seller list the two groups are not evenly represented. The month's 54,249 sales covered 1,592 different models and 121 different makes, and the dealer share of sales was 63.7%. First place takes only 1,495 sales, or 2.8% of the month, so the list describes a thin peak rather than the bulk of the market. And that peak sits at the cheap end.

1. 1 Volkswagen Golf 1,495 sales4,500 € median price
2. 2 Skoda Octavia 1,357 sales8,750 € median price
3. 3 Toyota Corolla 1,123 sales6,590 € median price
4. 4 Mercedes-Benz C 1,034 sales8,990 € median price
5. 5 Mercedes-Benz E 1,000 sales9,000 € median price
6. 6 Volkswagen Passat 923 sales5,880 € median price
7. 7 Toyota Yaris 889 sales11,800 € median price
8. 8 Audi A4 799 sales4,700 € median price
9. 9 Ford Focus 768 sales4,490 € median price
10. 10 Volkswagen Transporter 723 sales10,900 € median price

1 Volkswagen Golf

Volkswagen Golf is the month's most-traded model with 1,495 sales, or 2.8% of the total. Its median price is 4,500 €, its median model year 2010 and its median odometer reading 227,560 km. The sixth-generation Golf was built from 2008 to 2013, so the typical traded Golf comes from the middle of that run. The traded stock is therefore one generation's worth of cars, now on its second or third owner.

Dealers handled 52.8% of Golf sales, against 63.7% for the month as a whole. A car of this age changes hands on a driveway more often than on a forecourt, because its price is in the same range as a single larger repair. The Golf leads the list in the role of the cheapest used car, not as a recent trade-in.

Top position says less about the model than about its age. The price of the most-traded Golf is closer to one repair bill than to a forecourt car, and that governs who it is bought from and with what expectations.

2 Skoda Octavia

Skoda Octavia comes second with 1,357 sales. Its median price of 8,750 € is almost double the Golf's, even though its median odometer reading of 215,332 km is lower and its median model year of 2015 is five years more recent. The third-generation Octavia was built from late 2012 to 2019, and it forms the backbone of the traded Octavia stock.

The Octavia is the most dealer-driven model on the list: 69.6% of its sales went through a dealer. The gap to the Golf is sixteen percentage points, and it reflects age rather than model. A car five years younger is still at the age where a dealer will take it in part-exchange and sell it on with a warranty. Between first and second place, then, lies the whole boundary that separates forecourt trade from driveway trade.

The Octavia sits at the cheap end of the list, but nearer its upper limit than the Golf. The gap to the month's median is a little over a thousand euros, which puts the model right on the line the list never crosses.

3 Toyota Corolla

Toyota Corolla is third with 1,123 sales, and its median model year of 2008 is the oldest in the top five. Its median odometer reading of 166,023 km is nevertheless among the lowest on the list. Old and lightly used is an unusual combination in this company, and the median price of 6,590 € still falls below the month's median.

The explanation is in the name. Toyota renamed its European hatchback the Auris in 2006 and only brought the Corolla name back in 2019, so the traded Corolla stock comes in two parts: old saloons and recent hybrids, with almost nothing in between. The same gap shows up in the model's price curve (the ten-year hole in the Corolla's price curve). The model's median is therefore a figure no traded Corolla represents, and on the list it still looks like a plain third place.

The Corolla is a useful reminder of what a single line on a list can hide. Two cars are sold under one name with no shared price and no shared age, and the list shows only the point midway between them.

4 Mercedes-Benz C

Mercedes-Benz C takes fourth place with 1,034 sales and is the first premium badge on the list. Its median price of 8,990 € is almost the same as the Octavia's, but its median odometer reading of 261,000 km is the second highest in the top five. Its median model year of 2012 is three years older than the Octavia's.

When the same money buys either a 215,332 km car or a 261,000 km one, price no longer measures age or distance covered but what buyers will pay for the badge. The dealer share of 57.6% also falls below the month's average, so in this age group the C-Class moves from owner to owner more often than most. A premium badge, then, does not lift a car on this list into the upper half of the price distribution.

For a buyer this is the most interesting line on the list. The fourth most commonly traded model of the month is a premium badge whose median price falls below the month's median and whose median odometer reading is higher than that of the three models above it.

5 Mercedes-Benz E

Mercedes-Benz E closes the top five with exactly 1,000 sales. Its median price of 9,000 € comes closest to the month's median of any model on the list, but it is paid for a car with a median odometer reading of 305,000 km and a median model year of 2011. That reading is the highest on the list, and it is more than a hundred thousand kilometres above the month's median car.

The dealer share of 51.7% is the lowest in the top five. A large rear-wheel-drive estate or saloon that has covered three hundred thousand kilometres carries more resale risk for a dealer than margin, and that shows directly in which side of the market it is bought from. The top five share one trait: they are present in the month's sales because of their age, not their value. The median prices of the first five places run from 4,500 € to 9,000 €, so the whole top five sits within roughly one price band and stays below the month's median.

6 Volkswagen Passat

Volkswagen Passat is sixth with 923 sales, and its median price of 5,880 € is among the lowest on the list outside the top five. Its median model year of 2013 is more recent than the Golf's, the Corolla's and both Mercedes-Benzes, yet its median odometer reading of 272,000 km exceeds all of theirs apart from the E-Class.

The Passat is a classic long-distance car: it is bought to be driven, and its price follows the odometer rather than the model year. Its dealer share of 55.8% falls below the month's average. A recent model year combined with a high reading is exactly the trait that keeps a model at the cheap end of this list without the car being old. The Passat shows that the cheapness of the top ten is not purely a question of age.

Audi A4 and Ford Focus are the cheapest on the list

The cheapest models in the top ten are Audi A4 and Ford Focus. The A4 recorded 799 sales at a median price of 4,700 €, the Focus 768 sales at 4,490 €. The Focus median is the lowest of the whole ten, and the two cheapest models on the list are thus cars of quite different size.

The cars come from different classes but sit at the same price. The A4 has a median odometer reading of 285,000 km and a median model year of 2009; the Focus 201,000 km and 2011. At this end a premium badge costs the same as an ordinary car, because price no longer comes from the badge but from how much of the car is left. The same effect was already visible in the C-Class, but in the A4 it is carried to its conclusion.

Only 42.1% of A4 sales went through a dealer. That is the lowest share in the whole top ten, and it says where a premium car with nearly three hundred thousand kilometres on it ends up in Finland.

The best-seller list tells you what there is a lot of on Finnish roads. It does not tell you where the money in the car trade moves.

Yaris and Transporter rise above the median

Two models on the list do not fit the picture. Toyota Yaris is seventh with 889 sales, and its median price of 11,800 € is the highest of the ten. Volkswagen Transporter is tenth with 723 sales at a median price of 10,900 €. Both clear the month's median, so the cheap-end rule is not watertight.

The Yaris is explained by age. A median model year of 2016 and a median odometer reading of 118,000 km make it the newest and least-driven car on the list, and 76.6% of its sales went through a dealer. The Transporter is a van, priced on its usefulness: a median model year of 2012 and a median odometer reading of 263,000 km do not stop it fetching 10,900 €, because the buyer is paying for load space rather than age.

Neither overturns the picture, because the weight of the list is at its top. The first five models all fall below the median, and the exceptions sit in seventh and tenth place. The top ten in any case covers only a small part of the month's 54,249 sales, so a single model does not change how price is distributed. If anything, the exceptions show what does lift the price of a used car: recency or usefulness, not the popularity of the model.

The list is made of cars in the annual-inspection age group

The order says nothing about what is worth buying now. It says which stock happens to be at the age where cars are passed on cheaply. A median model year of 2014 means the month's typical sale involved a car over ten years old. According to the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency (Traficom), a passenger car more than 10 years old must undergo a roadworthiness inspection (katsastus) every year, whereas after the first four years the interval is two years. The month's median car is therefore on the annual side of that line, and all five of the models at the top of the list are there too.

The median price of 9,900 € follows directly from this. Half of the month's sales involved cars whose price is set by the cost of repair rather than the reputation of the model: when the inspection is annual and the cheapest price band has a median odometer reading of 305,531 km, one larger repair is a big share of what the car is worth. The other half of the month's sales is newer stock, where price still follows the model year.

The list only serves a reader when a price band is read alongside it. The month's best-selling model and the month's dearest price band are not the same market. The first is a thin peak of old stock; the second is 3,858 sales of cars with a median model year of 2024, 95.1% of which were bought from a dealer. These two groups meet neither in the same yard nor at the same price.

Volvo V70 and V60 are the same estate from different decades

Just outside the top ten sits the pair that shows the split most clearly. Volvo V70 was 14th in August with 632 sales, and its median price was 3,000 €. Its median model year is 2007 and its median odometer reading 394,000 km, the highest reading among the twenty most-traded models.

Volvo V60 is 15th and, with 598 sales, almost as common, but its median price is 19,990 €. Volvo ended V70 production in 2016 and replaced the model with the V60 and the V90, so these are two generations of the same estate. The V60's median model year is 2019 and its median odometer reading 166,000 km.

The difference is almost sevenfold, and it comes from age rather than model: same make, same body, same purpose. The dealer share says the same thing. Dealers handled 36.4% of V70 sales and 88.5% of V60 sales. The older estate moves on driveways and the newer one through forecourts, so one model line occupies both ends of the month's price distribution at once.

Neither appears in the top ten, even though together they would rank second. The name changed midway, and the list counts names.

Volume is in estates, money is in SUVs

The split by body style mirrors the one by price band. Estates accounted for 13,358 sales, or 24.6% of the month, with a median price of 7,900 €, a median model year of 2013 and a median odometer reading of 240,000 km. SUVs accounted for 11,009 sales, or 20.3%, but their median price is 25,220 € and their median odometer reading only 102,000 km.

Two groups of almost the same size therefore differ in price by more than a factor of three. In Finland the estate is the body style of the old car: it is bought to carry things and driven until it is finished, and its median model year of 2013 is eight years older than the SUV median. The SUV, in turn, is the body style through which newer stock moves, which is why it dominates the upper price bands without being the most common car sold.

Hatchbacks accounted for 11,371 sales, or 21.0%, and their median odometer reading of 158,000 km is among the lowest of any body style. The saloon's median model year of 2007 is the oldest and its median price of 5,500 € the lowest, so the same three body styles cover almost the whole price distribution of the month.

In this month's sales the body style says more about price than the make does, and the best-seller list does not show body style at all.

A used electric car is still nearly a new car

Fuel types follow the same line. Petrol cars accounted for 24,107 sales, or 44.4% of the month, with a median price of 5,450 €. Diesel took a 31.3% share at a median price of 7,900 €, but its median odometer reading of 280,000 km is the highest of any fuel type. Diesel is both dearer than petrol in this month's sales and more heavily driven.

Electric cars accounted for 5,446 sales, or 10.0%, and their median price of 34,900 € is the highest of any fuel type. A median model year of 2023 and a median odometer reading of 56,500 km show that in Finland the used electric car is still on its first round: it has not reached the cheap end at all. The plug-in hybrid sits in between, with a median price of 27,690 € and a median odometer reading of 89,000 km. No model on the best-seller list is electric.

This is the list's clearest blind spot. A tenth of the month's sales involved electric cars, and yet none appears among the ten most common models: electric sales are spread across so many models that none of them reaches the top. Newer stock is invisible on the list precisely because it is new.

Dealers do not buy the cheap end

By seller type the month divides so that dealers made 34,540 sales, or 63.7%, and private sellers 19,709, or 36.3%. That division is not the same in every price band; it turns on its head from one end of the scale to the other.

In the cheapest band, 17.7% of sales went through a dealer. In the next band the share is 43.3%, in the one after that 67.3%, and in the dearest band 95.1%. The rise is consistent across the whole scale, and it means the cheap end is in practice private trade and the dear end dealer trade.

That explains why the cheapest models on the list rarely appear in dealer stock. A dealer takes in part-exchange a car it can sell on with a warranty and a margin, and a car under three thousand euros carries neither. Much of the top of the list is therefore trade that never happens on a forecourt at all, which is a second reason the list does not describe what a forecourt has on offer.

Uusimaa and Kainuu buy different cars

By region the gap is the widest the month's figures contain. In Uusimaa there were 15,557 sales, or 28.7% of the national total, at a median price of 15,490 € and a median odometer reading of 140,000 km. In Kainuu there were 539 sales, or 1.0%, at a median price of 3,900 € and a median odometer reading of 286,178 km.

The same money buys a different car depending on the region, and the gap is close to fourfold. In Pohjois-Pohjanmaa the median price was 6,500 € and in Pirkanmaa 9,300 €, so several price bands separate the largest regions from one another. In Lappi the median price was 5,890 € and the median odometer reading 265,000 km, which means the north buys much the same car as Kainuu. In Varsinais-Suomi, the third largest region, the median price was 10,400 €, above the national median. The best-seller list is a national list, and it describes neither extreme.

Uusimaa pulls the national figure upwards, because it accounts for nearly a third of all sales. Without it the month's median price would be lower and the median odometer reading higher, so the split between the cheap and the dear end would be sharper still than the national figures suggest. The best-seller list, however, does not bend by region, because it is counted in cars rather than euros.

A price band tells you more than a model name

For a buyer, the lesson of the list is to read it the other way round. A model name tells you what there is a lot of on Finnish roads. A price band tells you how old a car and how many kilometres you get for the money. The same model turns up in several bands, and the band decides the rest.

The differences between bands are large. Among cars between 6,000 and 9,999 € the median model year is 2013 and the median odometer reading 222,800 km, and 67.3% of sales are made through a dealer. One step up, among cars between 10,000 and 14,999 €, the median model year is 2016, the median odometer reading 171,000 km and the dealer share 81.4%.

Four thousand euros therefore moves you three model years and roughly fifty thousand kilometres, and it lifts the dealer share above eighty per cent. That is a bigger change than switching models within the list, where the median prices run from 4,490 € to 11,800 €. The list is best read from the bottom up: price band first, then model, and the ranking last of all.

No car is sold at the median

August's median price of 9,900 € is a true figure, but it is not the price of any car. Eight of the ten models on the list fall below it, and the dearer half of the month is made up of newer stock in which no single model reaches the top. The figure lands in the gap between the two groups, and that is why it describes no individual car.

The list of best-selling models therefore answers one question: which models come with plenty of supply and plenty of spare parts. That is a real advantage in an old car, and it is exactly why the list is worth reading. What kind of car the money buys is answered by the price band.

The month's most-traded car was a 4,500 € Golf from the 2010 model year, while the median car in Uusimaa cost 15,490 €. Both are August car trade, but they are not the same sale and not alternatives for the same buyer. The list belongs to one of them.

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