Thursday, May 10. 2007

Factory Installed In-Car Nav Sytems Reduce Vehicle Resale Value

The world is moving to portable nav systems (for car and in some case "in-hand" for walkers) over factory installed ones. Here's more evidence of why: in-car systems reduce car resale values. Basically, in-car systems increase the depreciation rate of a car, per USA Today. One factoid:

LR2 [a Land Rover] without navigation will be worth 55% of its original value after three years, while one with navigation will be worth 52%, Automotive Lease Guide (ALG) has projected. ALG is a major forecaster of so-called residual values, used as a guide for lease contracts and as a measure of expected depreciation.

The article gives two reasons for the lower resale value: used car buyers want value, not tech and nav system tech changes so fast. For that reason more and more dealers are offering portable, after market devcies, right in the show room.

Best quote: "You have Bed Bath & Beyond selling portable navigation these days." That's from Stephen Witt, Alpine's vice president of marketing.