carsales announces Best Used Cars for 2022

Once again, we choose the market’s best options for used car buyers – and this year it’s a three-way battle of the brands buc2022 banner 1024x166

The 2022 carsales Best Used Cars awards, proudly presented by Bingle, have once again highlighted the broad selection of quality ‘pre-loved’ cars for buyers on a lean budget.

While we’ve skipped a year (2021), the combined brainpower of carsales and RedBook have stayed with the proven formula of assessing used cars up to six years old in different categories.

And we’ve worked our way backwards from the year we missed. So for 2022 we’re looking at cars from 2015.

In previous years Mazda has been the dominant brand, but the judges and the RedBook points have resulted in Ford and Toyota closing in on the leader in 2022.

Each of the three brands took two outright wins in different categories, but Mazda remains ahead of Ford and Toyota with its tally of honourable mentions in the small, medium and sports car categories.

Mazda’s mid-size passenger car, the Mazda6, was relegated to honourable mention status in 2022, after holding off all-comers in previous years.

And the Mazda BT-50 – an honourable mention in 2020 – was pushed out of contention by the RedBook analysis in the face of competition from new-for-2015 generations of Toyota HiLux and Nissan Navara.

The Mazda’s twin-under-the-skin, the Ford Ranger, repeated its win in the dual-cab ute segment through the concerted support of the judges, but was fortunate to be in the running in the first place, based on its RedBook score.

Each category of carsales Best Used Cars – proudly presented by Bingle – is based around car industry (VFACTS) segmentation, although certain categories are an amalgam of multiple segments, such as small cars or off-road 4x4, while the dual-cab ute category is an extract of the VFACTS pick-up and cab-chassis segments.

The categories are:

Small passenger car

Medium passenger car

Large passenger car

Small SUV

Medium SUV

Large SUV

Sports car

Luxury car

Dual-cab ute

Off-road 4x4

Scores were tallied in each category to settle on a winner and the two ‘honourable mentions’.

All the entrants were judged out of 100 points using the same criteria. RedBook analysis constituted half the maximum points, with a score out of 50 derived from cost of ownership, safety, retained value and market appeal.

For cost of ownership, the calculations were based on an average of 15,000km travelled each year from new, with fuel just one of the factors in arriving at a figure for each vehicle.

To work out annual fuel costs, RedBook employed a fixed priced per litre and each car’s official combined-cycle fuel consumption figure.

Safety scores were determined by the crash safety rating provided by the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP).

RedBook provided a ‘demand and supply’ metric to establish the market appeal of each vehicle by make and model, and RedBook also provided the ‘retained value’ information forming part of each car’s cost of ownership.

The RedBook score out of 50 was then combined with a rating out of 10 from each of the five judges for a total possible score out of 100 to name the winners and honourable mentions in the 10 categories.

The five judges were carsales managing editor Marton Pettendy, former technical editor Ken Gratton, RedBook data services director Ross Booth, carsales used-car buying expert Cliff Chambers and senior journalist Bruce Newton.

The 2022 carsales Best Used Cars are…

Best Used Small Car

Winner: 2015 Mazda3 Neo hatchback
“Japanese-built and simple mechanicals equals a good start” – Bruce Newton

Find a used 2015 Mazda3 Neo hatchback on carsales

Best Used Medium Car

Winner: 2015 Skoda Octavia Ambition 110TSI
“Quality finish in a stylish and practical design” – Ken Gratton

Find a used 2015 Skoda Octavia Ambition 110TSI on carsales

Best Used Large Car

Winner: 2015 Ford FG X Falcon XR6
“World-class family sedan with strong retained value, sadly killed off in its prime” – Cliff Chambers

Find a used 2015 Ford FG X Falcon XR6 on carsales

Best Used Small SUV

Winner: 2015 Honda HR-V VTi
“Practical and competent city run-about delivers low-cost but comfortable motoring” – Ken Gratton

Find a used 2015 Honda HR-V VTi on carsales

Best Used Medium SUV

Winner: 2015 Mazda CX-5 Maxx
“Japanese-built, interior could be classier, but the fundamentals are sound” – Bruce Newton

Find a used 2015 Mazda CX-5 Maxx on carsales

Best Used Large SUV

Winner: 2015 Subaru Outback 2.5i
“More affordable than its predecessor, the Outback is also safer, easier to drive, more luxurious and roomier” – Ken Gratton