Van depreciation: the best and worst time to sell by make and mileage

Depreciation is not a steady slide. It has cliffs, points where value drops sharply, and plateaus where a van holds its price for years. Knowing where your van sits on that curve is one of the most useful things you can know before deciding whether to sell now or wait.

The three phases of a van’s value

Phase 1: New to three years. The steepest drop happens here. A new van loses 20–35% of its list price in the first year, and another 10–15% per year after that. Vans coming off contract hire at 3 years/60,000 miles flood the nearly-new market and suppress prices further.

If you bought new and you’re in this phase, you’re on the wrong side of the depreciation curve. Holding another 12–24 months rarely recovers much ground.

Phase 2: Three to eight years. The plateau. Vans in this range, roughly 60,000 to 130,000 miles for a well-maintained example, hold value reasonably well because they’re still in their working lives and fully usable without major investment. This is the sweet spot for selling if you want trade or private value.

Phase 3: Eight years plus / 130,000+ miles. The second cliff. As vans approach the end of their primary working life, retail buyers become cautious, too old for fleet replacement cycles, too high-mileage for a sole trader who needs reliability. The market shifts from “used” to “salvage” for many makes.

How mileage overlays with age

A 2018 van with 180,000 miles has crossed into salvage territory for most buyers, regardless of service history. A 2018 van with 60,000 miles is still firmly in the used market.

The mileage thresholds vary by make:

• Ford Transit / Transit Custom: the market starts to thin noticeably above 150,000 miles. The 2.0 EcoBlue (2019+) has stronger high-mileage confidence than the older 2.2 TDCi. Above 200,000 miles it’s almost always salvage.
• Mercedes Sprinter: holds confidence longer. A well-maintained Sprinter with full Mercedes service history can attract used buyers at 200,000 miles. The OM651 engine is known to run to 300,000+ with proper maintenance.
• Volkswagen Transporter T5/T6: premium residuals throughout. T6s with full VW history above 150,000 miles still attract near-retail attention from camper converters and enthusiasts. The secondary market is unusually deep.
• Vauxhall Vivaro / Renault Trafic: these tend to hit the salvage cliff earlier, around 130,000–150,000 miles, partly due to the known 1.6 BiTurbo engine issues in the pre-2019 generation.
• Vauxhall Movano / Renault Master: similar pattern, but the large frame means parts demand is strong from the ambulance and welfare conversion market.

The MOT cliff

A van approaching an MOT failure is a specific depreciation trigger. If your van has a known MOT failure coming, worn brakes, cracked windscreen, advisory items from last year, the cost of getting it through test gets priced in by any trade buyer.

A Transit with £800 of MOT work needed doesn’t lose exactly £800 in offer price, it loses more, because the buyer also prices in the time and risk of managing the work.

Selling before that work is due (while the MOT is still valid) typically yields a better outcome than selling immediately after a failure.

The ULEZ-compliance cliff

Covered in more detail in our ULEZ guide, but briefly: any diesel van registered before September 2016 faces an increasing buyer discount in ULEZ and CAZ areas. This discount has grown significantly since London’s 2023 expansion and is likely to increase further as more cities implement zones.

If your van falls into this category, waiting to sell is working against you.

When you should act quickly

Three signals that now is better than later:

1. Your van is between 7 and 9 years old, you’re approaching the second cliff. Every 12 months from here narrows the pool of used buyers.
2. It’s pre-2016 diesel, ULEZ discount is growing, not shrinking.
3. There’s a major service item due, cam belt, clutch, injectors. Buyers price these in at more than cost.

When waiting makes sense

One scenario where holding off can pay: if your van is between 3 and 5 years old and you’ve just had a large service spend (new clutch, timing belt, fresh MOT). That investment takes time to reflect in buyer confidence. Selling immediately after a £1,200 clutch replacement often doesn’t recover the spend, but 12 months later, a buyer sees a van with known-good drivetrain and recent documentation.