The average values for used cars were within 1.6% of CAP Gold’s forecasts in December 2014, the vehicle valuation company has revealed.
This overall, weighted average hid some significant differences between the various model types, however.
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While the city car, lower medium and multi person vehicle sector forecasts were -0.1%, 0.6% and -0.3% off respectively, respectively, average SUV values were 6.4% below forecast levels.
Other sectors were between the two extremes. Executive models were -1.3% off, superminis were -2.1% off, and the upper medium segment was -3.1% off.
Speaking to Motor Finance, Dylan Setterfield, senior forecasting editor at CAP, said the company had talked about the difficulties the SUV sector provided vehicle valuation companies, but that it had moved to within -2.3% of forecast in January.
The company launched CAP Gold in June 2013, as a ‘radical transformation’ and rebrand of its residual value forecasting tool, CAP Monitor.
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By GlobalDataSetterfield said: "Over the long term, Monitor was actually very accurate, but the system and methodology were not really capable of dealing with the financial crisis in 2008 and its aftermath. I joined CAP in January 2013, with a mandate to re-engineer the methodology so that it was more robust.
"Gold Book has received overwhelmingly positive feedback from customers and the methodology is now in line with those used for RV setting by most major leasing companies. It has also provided a common language for discussions with customers which was previously lacking."
Looking ahead, Setterfield said: "In April this year, we will also be building on the success of Gold Book and our Black Book Plus product (0-3 month forecasts) and releasing a Short Term Forecast product to cover values from 0 to 12 months. Unlike other products currently available from our competitors, this will not rely on generic algorithms, but instead will be a live, researched product with a dedicated Editor."
