2024 Ford Ranger Platinum The Ford Ranger remains undefeated, maintaining its top position in the used car market.
Image: Supplied
Used car market sales continue to look positive following a strong start to 2025.
According to data from "AutoTrader", February posted superior year-on-year (YoY) sales and only a slight decline in monthly sales despite fewer business days.
Meanwhile, January normally sees a strong performance as a result of various incentives and discounts offered by dealerships but February did well with 28,885 used vehicles sold, representing a 0.8% YoY increase and a 6.7% month-on-month (MoM) decrease.
Ranger still tops
The Ford Ranger remains undefeated, maintaining its top position in the used car market. The top six best-selling vehicles have retained their rankings from last month, with some shifts between the seventh and tenth spots.
Compared to January 2025, the Nissan NP200 has moved up two places to seventh, while the Toyota Starlet now sits in ninth, one spot higher than last month.
Meanwhile, the Mercedes-Benz C-Class remains in the top 10 but more affordable vehicles are pushing it down. It finished in tenth place in February - down from eighth last month and sixth a year ago.
The Isuzu D-Max has also shifted slightly, dropping from seventh to eighth. The Toyota Starlet has moved to ninth from 17th last year among South Africa’s best-selling used cars.
The combined value of used vehicles sold in February 2025 mirrors the sales growth, with a YoY increase and a minor MoM decline. The accumulative value reached R12,02 billion, 3.7% higher than February 2024 (R11.60 billion) and 4.46% lower than January 2025 (R12.59 billion).
Interestingly, the average price of a used car in February 2025 was higher at R416,483, representing a R9,790 MoM increase and a R11,578 YoY increase.
2024 Toyota Hilux Raider facelift South Africa Toyota remains the most popular brand in the used car market.
Image: Supplied
Most popular brands
Toyota remains the most popular brand, followed by Volkswagen and Ford. With 5,099 cars sold in February 2025, Toyota has seen a 6% yearly increase and a 4% monthly decline. Volkswagen, with 4,004 sales, saw minor YoY growth of 1% but a MoM decline of 9%. Ford recorded 3,076 sales last month, with the biggest monthly decline of 12%.
Kia saw a significant decrease at 16%. Over a year, the Korean automaker declined 17% compared to February 2024. Comparatively, Suzuki (6th) and Hyundai (4th) have seen YoY growth of 20% and 10%, respectively.
The Ford Ranger retains its position, with 1,725 examples sold in February followed by the Hilux with 1,501, while the Polo is in third place with 1,178 units.
The Polo Vivo 1.4 remains the most popular variant with 883 examples sold, the Polo 1.0 TSI, is in second place with 719 units followed by the Hilux 2.8 GD-6 (651), Ranger XL (537) and Hilux 2.4 GD-6 (512) rounding out the list.
Top 10
1 Ford Ranger
2 Toyota Hilux
3 Volkswagen Polo
4 Volkswagen polo Vivo
5 Toyota Fortuner
6 Suzuki Swift
7 Nissan NP 200
8 Isuzu D-Max
9 Toyota Starlet
10 Mercedes-Benz C-Class