Research

What's an old car worth when its COE runs out?

We looked at all 3,512 cars on renewed COEs for sale in Singapore. Without its COE, an ordinary old car is worth almost nothing; a few, like the Porsche 911, keep much of their value. The surest guide to any car is its own model, and that is how Carkaki values it.

By Phil · 16 October 2026 · 20 min read

The short version

• A used car's price is two things: the COE left on it, and the car itself. The COE runs down to nothing: about $13,000 a year on a 10-year COE, whatever the car.
• Without its COE, an ordinary car over 13 years old is worth almost nothing. Collector cars and cult sports cars keep most of their OMV, or more.
• The model matters most. Mainstream cars 10 to 13 years old run from 5% to 65% of their OMV, but Honda Vezels sit at 18–35% and Toyota Alphards at 82–106%. So Carkaki values each car from cars of its own model.
• That's why an old Porsche 911 on a new COE costs a little less a year than a 10-year-old Mercedes E-Class: about $16,100 against $17,200.

Two parts of every price

A used car's price pays for the car, and for its COE: the right to keep it on the road. When the COE runs out, the car comes off the road, or its owner renews the COE by paying the PQP ($131,616 for a Cat B car in October 2026). On a new 10-year COE that's about $13,200 a year, and it runs down to nothing, for a Toyota or a Ferrari.

The rest of the price is the car itself. To see what that's worth when a car is old, we look at cars that are old already: the ones on renewed COEs for sale today. For each, we take the list price, subtract what its remaining COE is worth, and compare what's left with its OMV (what the car cost to bring into Singapore, before taxes). A car at 50% of its OMV has kept half of that, whether it's a $20,000 Honda or a $200,000 Ferrari.

What we found

On 16 October 2026, 3,512 cars on renewed COEs were for sale on sgcarmart. Here they are in four types and five age groups.

Mainstream brandsToyota, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai, Volkswagen…

Premium brandsMercedes, BMW, Audi, Lexus, Porsche (not the 911)…

Exotic and collector carsFerrari, Lamborghini, Bentley, Rolls‑Royce, Porsche 911…

Sports cars from mainstream brandsMitsubishi Evo, Nissan GT‑R, Honda Type R, Mazda RX‑7…

Ordinary cars are worth almost nothing without their COE. Mainstream cars sell for about a third of their OMV at 10 to 13 years old, then 0 to 2%. Of the 807 over 13, 6 in 10 were priced at or below what their COE is worth: you're buying the COE, and the car comes free.

Premium cars lose most of theirs too: 58% of their OMV at 10 to 13 years, then 5 to 17%.

Exotic and collector cars keep theirs: 156% at 10 to 13 years, and still 64 to 85% after that. The 911 is the most common of them: 84 were for sale.

So do sports cars from mainstream brands. Evos, GT-Rs, Type Rs and RX-7s are priced at 74 to 177% of their OMV.

The numbers as a table

Years old	Mainstream	Premium	Exotic	Sports
10–13	33%5–65%220	58%28–90%357	156%129–183%62	143%85–152%9
13–16	0%0–27%141	15%0–33%577	85%60–110%151	74%59–183%13
16–19	0%0–10%608	5%0–18%543	82%54–108%77	126%73–186%129
19–22	2%0–25%40	17%6–36%44	75%59–83%31	126%65–204%72
22+	0%0–0%18	16%0–44%45	64%38–150%29	177%55–331%50

• The big number is the middle: half the cars were priced above it, half below.
• Under it, low to high: a quarter of the cars were below the low, a quarter above the high.
• The last number is how many cars it comes from.

Why similar cars are priced so differently

The middle is only half the story. Here is every car, one chart per type: how many were priced at each step of 10% of their OMV. Point at a bar, or tap it, to see which cars are in it.

Each row is an age group, and its tallest bar is its most crowded step. The shaded part holds the middle half of the cars, the dark line is the middle and the dashed line is 100%. Cars at 200% or more are in the last bar. Paler bars come from fewer than 20 cars.

10–13220 cars

13–16141 cars

16–19608 cars

19–2240 cars

22+18 cars

050%100%150%200%+

10–13357 cars

13–16577 cars

16–19543 cars

19–2244 cars

22+45 cars

050%100%150%200%+

10–1362 cars

13–16151 cars

16–1977 cars

19–2231 cars

22+29 cars

050%100%150%200%+

10–139 cars

13–1613 cars

16–19129 cars

19–2272 cars

22+50 cars

050%100%150%200%+

Mainstream cars over 13 sit at or near 0%, whatever the model. Elsewhere the spread is wide, for three reasons.

1. Different models share a type

This is the biggest. Among exotic cars aged 13 to 16, the middle Bentley Continental GT is priced at 55% of its OMV, a Ferrari 458 Italia at 99% and a Porsche 911 Carrera at 169%. Within one model, prices sit close together: half the 458 Italias are between 92% and 109%.

2. Some prices are too high

These are list prices. A car priced too high doesn't sell and stays listed, while a well-priced car sells and drops off. Of the cars priced 20% or more below others of their model, 16% had been for sale over 6 months; of those priced 50% or more above, 39%. More on this.

3. Each car is different

Mileage, owners, condition, spec and rarity. Among 911s 17 to 21 years old, GT3s are priced at 2 to 3 times their OMV, and the middle Carrera at about 1.1 times.

Narrow the group, and the estimate gets better

Since the model explains most of the spread, Carkaki values each car from the narrowest group with at least 6 cars of about the age it will be when its COE ends: its own model first (Honda Vezel 1.5A, then Honda Vezel), then the same make and body (Toyota MPVs), then the same body and COE category (Cat B SUVs), then the same body, and only then its type. That's 278 models and 108 other groups.

What it changes, for mainstream cars 10 to 13 years old:

We tested it by valuing every one of the 3,512 cars from the others. By its type alone, the estimate was off by 35 points of OMV on average; by its model, 29; with the other groups too, 28. For mainstream cars 10 to 13 years old, where the most money is at stake, it went from 45 to 35. Mileage and COE category matter as well, but adding them on top of the model made no difference: most cars sit near their model's middle.

On Carkaki, open a car and tap “How we estimate $3,800” (with its own number), then “See the 15 cars”: a small chart shows the very cars behind the estimate, and you can tap each one.

How Carkaki values a car

Take a real one: a 2007 Porsche 911 Carrera on a new 10-year COE, with 105,000 km and 3 owners, listed at $222,777.

1. Split the price. 10 years of Cat B COE are worth $131,616, so the car itself is priced at $91,161.
2. Find its group. It will be 29 when its COE ends in 2036, and 13 Porsche 911s over 22 years old are for sale: enough for its own model.
3. Read the group. Their middle is 65% of OMV, and half of them sit between 62% and 163%. All 29 exotic cars of that age would mislead: they run from 11% to 289%, because old Bentleys and Ferraris are in there too.

4. Apply it to its OMV. Identical cars can have different OMVs, so we use the middle OMV of the 911 Carreras you're comparing: $122,202 here. 65% of it is $79,400.
5. Allow for mileage. It has done about 28,000 km more than usual for an exotic car of its age (4,000 km a year), so we take 11% off: $70,600. Usual for other cars is 15,000 km a year.
6. Never count on a rise. Its value at the end can't be more than the car itself is priced at today, $91,161. Here it isn't.
7. Work out the cost a year. ($222,777 − $70,600) ÷ 10 years = $15,200 a year, its true depreciation. With the group's low (62%) it's $15,500; with its high (163%, held at today's $91,161), $13,200. $13,200 a year of it is the COE.

A car whose COE ends before it's 10 years old also gets LTA's PARF rebate: 50 to 75% of the tax (ARF) paid when it was new. We use the rebate or the car's value, whichever is more.

Why an old 911 costs less a year than an E-Class

Put old 911s next to 10-year-old Mercedes E-Classes, all on new 10-year COEs:

Middle values: half the cars are above, half below, so the lines don't add up exactly. The 911s are Carreras, Targas and Turbos (not GT3s). Road tax includes the surcharge for cars over 10 years old.

Both lose about the same COE. The difference is the car. An E-Class's car part, about $40,000 today, is worth next to nothing by the time it's 20: all of it goes. A 911's car part is worth almost three times as much and keeps about two thirds of it. So the extra $66,000 an old 911 costs isn't money you lose: most of it comes back when you sell.

It isn't free, though. Road tax is $4,300 a year more, and insurance and servicing cost more (we don't count those, or petrol, parking and loan interest, for any car). Our estimate can be wrong. And $66,000 more tied up in a car earns nothing elsewhere.

How far to trust it

• The middle is a typical car, not yours. So Carkaki also shows a low and a high (the middle half of the group sits between them), and never counts on a car going up in value. On a new 10-year COE they're typically about $400 a year apart for a mainstream car, $600 for a premium car, $1,300 for a sports car and $4,700 for an exotic: most of the yearly cost is the COE, which we know exactly.
• List prices, not selling prices. Cars usually sell for a few percent less.
• Today's old cars stand in for tomorrow's. We assume a car registered in 2016 will be valued in 2036 the way a 2006 car is today. COE prices and tastes change.
• Some groups are small. We need 6 cars of about the right age; with fewer we widen the ages by 3 years each way, then go to a broader group.
• No electric car has a renewed COE yet. An EV is valued from petrol and hybrid cars of its body, and Carkaki says so on its card.

Where the numbers come from

• Cars: the 3,512 cars on renewed COEs listed for sale on sgcarmart on 16 October 2026, leaving out commercial vehicles and listings without an OMV, a price or a COE date. Ages are years since first registration, on that day; “22+” is 22 to 40 years.
• What the COE is worth: years of COE left (up to 10) ÷ 10 × the PQP for its category in October 2026, from LTA.
• Groups: a model is its make and the first one or two words of its name; bodies are as sgcarmart lists them. Low and high are the 25th and 75th percentiles of each group.
• Costs a year: Carkaki's own sums, the same as on the site. Road tax as shown on each listing.
• Updated 18 October 2026: cars valued by model and group. We'll refresh the numbers every few months and date each update.