Here in Singapore, 5 years is considered quite old already.
There's a few factors to this:
Chiefly, it's because of this tax called Certificate of Entitlement (COE), which is valid for 10 years only. There's different categories for different engine capacities (below 1600cc, above 1600cc, Goods and Commercial vehicles, taxis, Open category).
However, once the time is up, owners have the chance to renew the COE, but then road tax (also based on engine cap) goes up for older cars.
Therefore, few ppl actually bother keeping their cars after 10 yrs.
Then there's also the Chinese (majority of population) superstitions. Something like new is better or something like that (I'm not a very superstitious person :squint: )
The stupid thing about all the taxes means Singapore is one of THE most expensive places to buy and own a car. For example, our new Mitsubishi Grandis, a 2.4l 7-seater people-carrier cost $70k, and that's only because of all the discounts (they were gonna phase in a new facelifted model). U.P. was $85k :eek:
A small sedan like the Toyota Corolla 1.6 costs about $55k
Exec car like the Chrysler 300C 3.5? $160k. Or, if you'd rather have more quality, the Merc E200 is $180k
Small exec car like the BMW 320i? $155k
Large sedan like the Honda Accord 2.0 is almost $90k
A small SUV like the Hyundai Tuscon 2.0 is $71k (and that's because, being a Hyundai, it's cheap). The class leaders, Honda CR-V, Nissan X-Trail and Toyota RAV4 are between 85-90k.
Larger SUVs? Volvo XC90=200k Mercedes ML350=228k Lexus RX350=150k Porsche Cayenne S=320k
As you can see, the badge makes a HUGE difference in the price...
Another Singaporean mindset is that no matter what car we buy, we try to go for the smallest engine in the biggest body. in other words, a well-specced base model.
And that's pretty what it's like to own a car in Singapore
Stinge, when i said old car, I meant previous car