Used Toyota FJ Cruisers Are Now Selling For How Much?!

Perhaps Toyota made a mistake, discontinuing its now iconic FJ Cruiser last year. Built from 2004 to 2014, the FJ Cruiser was one of the last true SUVs on the market. Thanks to its body-on-frame construction, as opposed to unibody, it was placed in the same category with the Toyota 4Runner and Jeep Wrangler - two of the best (and now only) off-road-capable SUVs still on sale. And now, apparently, the used car market has responded in full to the FJ Cruiser's exclusivity.

Automotive News reports that sales for used FJ Cruisers are red hot right now. In fact, dealers are finding themselves outbidding each other at auctions for FJ Cruisers even with high mileage. For example, a used-car manager from a Virginia Toyota dealer tried to buy an '08 FJ Cruiser with 87,000 miles at a recent auction, but was outbid by another dealer. The final price? $18,000. According to one estimate, that's roughly 60 percent of its new-vehicle sticker price. A typically equipped 2012 FJ Cruiser, Auto News discovered by looking up the NADA Used Car Guide data, had an average trade-in price of $25,275 from August through October. Original sticker price: $27,840.

Do the math: that's 90.8 percent of its original price. The FJ Cruiser's closest competitor here? The 2012 Jeep Wrangler Sport which, during that same time period, "had an average trade-in value of $18,413, or 68.1 percent of sticker." So why is the FJ Cruiser retaining its value at this level? Simple. The light truck market is extremely solid at the moment, mainly thanks to lowered gas prices. The fact that the FJ Cruiser has been discontinued also has a hand; people always want what they can no longer get.