July's median price describes none of the best-selling models

In brief

• Seven of the ten best-selling models had a median price below 10,000 €.
• The cheapest on the list is the Ford Focus at 4,799 € and the dearest the Volvo XC60 at 25,780 €.
• Electric cars accounted for 5,323 sales at a median price of 34,900 €, yet not one electric model makes the ten best-selling list.
• The dealer share of sales rises from 17.4% to 95.5% as the price band moves from the cheapest to the dearest.
• In Uusimaa the median price of a car sold is 16,290 €; in Kainuu it is 4,000 €.

The ten best-selling models are old cars

July saw 49,358 used cars change hands, spread across 1,502 different models. The ten best-selling models account for just under a fifth of them, and the list looks much like the Finnish road: the Golf, the Octavia, the Toyota Corolla and two Mercedes-Benzes. What they share is age and mileage. Cars from 120 different makes were sold, but the ten best-selling models come from only seven manufacturers.

The median model years of the top ten fall between 2010 and 2018, and every one of them has a six-figure odometer reading. The median model year for the market as a whole is 2015, so the cars on the list are mostly older than that. The market's median price of 11,480 € matches none of these models. The list's prices sit on either side of it: eight models fall below and two rise above, and not one lands on the figure. The median is therefore not the price of a typical sale but the boundary between two different kinds of purchase.

1. 1 Volkswagen Golf 5,800 € Median price1,287 Sales
2. 2 Skoda Octavia 10,400 € Median price1,258 Sales
3. 3 Toyota Corolla 8,500 € Median price989 Sales
4. 4 Mercedes-Benz C 9,780 € Median price968 Sales
5. 5 Mercedes-Benz E 9,800 € Median price905 Sales
6. 6 Volkswagen Passat 7,970 € Median price856 Sales
7. 7 Volvo XC60 25,780 € Median price734 Sales
8. 8 Ford Focus 4,799 € Median price733 Sales
9. 9 Toyota Yaris 12,350 € Median price719 Sales
10. 10 Audi A4 5,900 € Median price716 Sales

1 Volkswagen Golf

The Volkswagen Golf changed hands 1,287 times, or 2.6% of July's sales. Its median price is 5,800 €, its median model year 2012 and its median odometer reading 208,000 km. That puts it in the €3,000–5,999 price band.

The model year explains the price. The seventh-generation Golf reached European markets in November 2012, so the most-traded Golf sits exactly on the changeover: the last of the sixth generation and the first of the seventh. They were bought new at a time when the Golf was registered in Finland in large numbers, and that same batch is now coming to market for the second or third time. Sheer numbers are what lift a model to the top: a high placing says how many cars there are in Finland, not how sought-after they are. Dealers handled 60.1% of Golf sales, a lower share than the market average, which points to the price bracket these cars move in.

2 Skoda Octavia

The Skoda Octavia missed the top spot narrowly: 1,258 sales and 2.5% of the month's total. Its median price is 10,400 €, its median model year 2016 and its median odometer reading 200,000 km.

The Octavia is the third most expensive model on the list, and the gap to the Golf comes from age: its median model year is four years fresher. The mileage is nearly the same, which means the Octavia has reached that reading in less time. Cars of the same size therefore fetch very different prices depending on which generation is circulating. The steps in the Octavia's price curve are covered separately in the article on the Octavia's price curve. Dealers accounted for 74.2% of Octavia sales, among the highest on the list.

3 Toyota Corolla

The Toyota Corolla took 989 sales and 2.0% of the month's total. Its median price is 8,500 €, its median model year 2010 and its median odometer reading 149,000 km.

The Corolla is among the least driven of the top ten, behind only the Toyota Yaris, and at the same time one of the oldest models on it. The Passat, four years newer, shows 240,000 km; the Corolla shows almost a hundred thousand kilometres less. Age and mileage do not move together even within one top-ten list, which is exactly why neither alone predicts the price. The Corolla's price lands mid-table, above the Golf, even though the car is older. For a buyer that means the model year on its own says very little about wear, when cars of the same age spread this widely on mileage.

4 Mercedes-Benz C-Class

The Mercedes-Benz C changed hands 968 times. Its median price is 9,780 €, its median model year 2012 and its median odometer reading 247,000 km. Dealers handled 62.4% of the sales.

The C-Class is the first premium-badge model on the list, and its figures show what that means second-hand. The car is the same age as the Golf, but it carries tens of thousands more kilometres and still costs more. A higher price when new does not survive into the used price; it wears off over the same span as it does on a cheaper model. For a buyer the difference shows up as a choice: the same money buys either a less driven compact or a more driven mid-size premium car. The price tag alone does not say which of the two is in front of you, so mileage and model year have to be read separately.

5 Mercedes-Benz E-Class

The Mercedes-Benz E is the most driven car on the list: its median odometer reading is 296,681 km. It took 905 sales at a median price of 9,800 €, in practice the same as the smaller C-Class.

A car a size class larger therefore costs no more second-hand if it has been driven further. The E-Class also shows a second feature of the list: the dealer share stops at 53.4%, and for the Audi A4 it is 49.3%. In both cases the dealer share stays below sixty per cent, against 66.9% for the market as a whole. Heavily driven large cars change hands without a dealer more often than others, and for a buyer that is a real difference: a private sale carries no dealer liability. The E-Class accounts for 1.8% of all sales and the C-Class for 2.0%, so Finland trades two Mercedes-Benz size classes in almost equal numbers.

6 Volkswagen Passat

The Volkswagen Passat took 856 sales and 1.7% of the month's total. Its median price is 7,970 € and its median model year 2014.

The Passat is the clearest example on the list that age alone does not set the price. It is four years newer than the Golf and a size class bigger, yet cheaper. Its median odometer reading is 240,000 km, the fourth highest on the list, and that is what pushes the price down. A large car accumulates kilometres faster, and on this list the price tracks mileage more closely than it tracks the year. The Passat is also the model where the gap between the new-car buyer and the used-car buyer is starkest: the same car that was once a family's big purchase now changes hands among the cheapest on the list.

7 Volvo XC60

The Volvo XC60 breaks the pattern of the list. Its median price is 25,780 €, more than four times the Golf's, and its median model year is 2018. It took 734 sales, and dealers accounted for 93.3% of them, the highest share on the list.

One model from the expensive end is enough to call the whole pattern into question. If a 25,780 € SUV sells 734 times in a month, the list cannot be simply a list of old cars. The second-generation XC60 entered production in March 2017, so what is being traded at the top are its earliest model years, and they are almost always sold through a dealer. The exception does not overturn the pattern: the XC60 is the only model on the list to clear twenty thousand euros, and eight of the ten still sit below the market median. One model in ten does not make the list expensive; it shows which direction the more expensive half comes from.

8 Ford Focus

The Ford Focus is the cheapest on the list: its median price is 4,799 €. It took 733 sales, its median model year is 2012 and its median odometer reading 201,000 km.

The Focus and the Golf are the same age, the same size and driven almost the same distance, and still the Focus fetches less. The difference is not in the car but in what people will pay for the badge second-hand. The Focus falls into the same price band as the Golf but at its lower edge, and it is the only model on the list whose median price comes in under five thousand euros. In this band the sale is usually made without a dealer, and the Focus's own figures follow suit: dealers handled 59.2%. In that band the median car sold is a 2008 model with 265,000 km, so the Focus is younger and less driven than the band's average.

The top-ten list is not a list of cheap cars. It is a list of the models Finland simply has a lot of.

9 Toyota Yaris

The Toyota Yaris took 719 sales. Its median price is 12,350 €, its median model year 2017 and its median odometer reading 111,000 km, the lowest on the list.

Alongside the XC60, the Yaris is the other model on the list that rises above the market median, and it gets there by an entirely different route. The XC60 is a large, expensive car; the Yaris is small and lightly used. What lifts its price is that Yarises reach the market younger than the other models on the list: a median model year of 2017 is two years fresher than the market's own median. The dealer share is 82.9%, which fits the picture of a younger car. A small car, then, is not automatically a cheap car. The Yaris and the Octavia are the only models on the list that land in the same price band as the market median, and even that band holds only a little over a tenth of all sales.

10 Audi A4

The Audi A4 closes out the top ten with 716 sales. Its median price is 5,900 €, its median model year 2010 and its median odometer reading 270,000 km.

The A4 is the second most driven and at the same time the second cheapest model on the list. The combination sums up the logic of the whole ranking: once a car is more than ten years old and has covered a quarter of a million kilometres, the badge no longer holds the price up. The dealer share stops at 49.3%, the lowest on the list. The bottom of the ranking is made up of cars a dealer rarely takes in part-exchange, and which pass straight from one owner to the next. The A4's median model year is the same as the Corolla's, but it carries nearly twice the mileage and still sells for less. A badge does not protect value once the kilometres have piled up.

The estate is the most common, the SUV the most expensive

Body style tells the same split from the other side. The estate is Finland's most commonly traded body style with 25.1% of sales, at a median price of 8,900 €. The SUV is second with 21.7%, but its median price is 25,990 €.

The difference is not the body but the age. The median estate sold is a 2014 model with 230,000 km; the median SUV is a 2021 model with 98,000 km. SUVs arrived on the Finnish market later than estates, so their used-car stock is younger and has not yet had time to wear out.

The sedan is the cheapest body style at 6,200 €, and it is also the oldest: a median model year of 2008. The models on the top-ten list are mostly estates, hatchbacks and sedans, the body styles whose stock is oldest. The SUV's 21.7% shows up on the list through a single model, the XC60, because the rest is spread across many nameplates and none is common enough on its own. The price gap between an estate and an SUV is close to threefold, even though both sell more than ten thousand units a month and both are family cars.

The expensive half does not fit on the list

If the cars on the list are old and cheaper than the market median, something must be pulling the median up. That group is found in the price bands. A good fifth of July's sales were made at over 25,000 €: €25,000–39,999 covered 15.2% and €40,000 and over 7.3%.

The distribution has two peaks. The lowest band, €0–2,999, is the largest single band at 19.5%, and the second peak is the €15,000–24,999 band at 18.0%. The €10,000–14,999 band between them is the smallest of all except the dearest, at 12.0%. And it is into that dip that the market's median price of 11,480 € falls.

A figure sitting between two peaks describes neither group. The cars in the lower peak have a median model year of 2005 and 306,000 km on the clock; those in the upper peak are 2019 models with 120,000 km. They are not the cheaper and dearer ends of one market but two different transactions, in which the buyer, the seller and the car are all different.

Cheap cars are sold without a dealer

The price band also decides who the car is bought from. Dealers sold 33,027 cars in July, or 66.9% of all sales, and the remaining 16,331 changed hands privately. That headline figure hides the fact that the share varies with the price band more than any other measure covered here.

In the cheapest band the dealer share is 17.4%, meaning five sales in six are made without a dealer. In the €25,000–39,999 band the share is 95.5%. In practice these are two different ways of buying a car: at the bottom the deal is between two private individuals with no consumer protection, at the top it is with a dealer and usually on finance.

This explains why the dealer shares of the models on the list stay low. The Golf's 60.1% and the A4's 49.3% say nothing about the models themselves and everything about the price band they land in. When the same kind of model sells dearer and younger, as the Volvo XC60 does, the dealer share climbs to 93.3%. The same shows in the Octavia's 74.2%: it is among the youngest models on the list. The dealer share is therefore an age gauge as much as the model year is, and it tells a buyer in advance what kind of transaction to expect in a given band.

No electric car appears on the list

The cars in the upper peak do not appear in the rankings at all, and the reason lies in how they are spread. Electric cars accounted for 5,323 sales in July, or 10.8% of the total, at a median price of 34,900 €. That is more than the median price of any model on the list. Yet not one electric model reaches the ten best-selling models.

The explanation is the number of models. Electric sales are spread across dozens of separate nameplates, none of which is enough on its own to reach the top, whereas the 21,072 petrol sales pile up on the same old models that have been sold in Finland for decades. The list therefore measures how common a model is, not where the money goes.

The high median price of an electric car says nothing about the fuel and everything about age. The median electric car sold is a 2023 model with 57,000 km, while for petrol the same figures are 2009 and 187,000 km. The same phenomenon is covered in the article on electric car prices and age. What matters for the rankings is that this group pulls the median up without appearing in a single placing. The median price of a plug-in hybrid, 27,870 €, and of a hybrid, 23,800 €, sit at the same upper end, against 5,950 € for petrol and 8,700 € for diesel.

Uusimaa and Kainuu buy different cars

The same split shows on the map. Uusimaa recorded 11,306 sales, or 22.9% of the national total, and the median price of a car sold there is 16,290 €. In Kainuu the same figure is 4,000 €.

The difference is not price alone. The median car sold in Uusimaa is a 2018 model with 135,000 km; in Kainuu it is a 2006 model with 293,573 km. These are different cars, not the same car at a different price.

The order of the regions follows the same logic as the price bands. Where most new cars were registered in the first place, the used market is dearer too; where cars are driven to the end of their lives, what is traded is cheap and heavily used. The national median price falls between these extremes and matches the level of neither region. In Pohjois-Pohjanmaa the median price is 7,300 € and in Pirkanmaa 10,790 €, both below the national median. In Pohjois-Karjala it is 5,800 € and in Lappi 6,200 €, both closer to Kainuu than to Uusimaa.

What 11,480 € buys

For a buyer the median only becomes useful once you know it is a boundary and not a description. In the €10,000–14,999 band, where the market's median price of 11,480 € falls, the median car sold is a 2016 model with 166,000 km on the clock. Dealers account for 83.4% of sales in that band.

Half of July's sales fell between 3,990 € and 23,890 €. The bottom and the top of that range are different cars, but both are equally ordinary transactions. A buyer who reads the median as a promise about what kind of car that money buys ends up searching in precisely the band where the fewest sales are made.

In practice the price range is best set by the age of car you are after, not by where the middle of the market happens to be. A search under ten thousand euros leads to the models on this list, carrying a good two hundred thousand kilometres and most often bought from a private seller. A search above twenty thousand leads to SUVs and electric cars, driven under a hundred thousand and almost always coming from a dealer. The strip between the two is the narrowest part of the whole market. That does not mean it is a bad place to buy; it means the choice is smallest there and the comparisons hardest to make.

Two markets under one figure

July's sales do not form one market but two, which happen to share a single figure. In one, Golfs and Focuses more than ten years old change hands for between three and ten thousand euros, usually without a dealer. In the other, SUVs and electric cars a few years old are traded, their prices starting roughly where the first group leaves off, and almost always sold through a dealer.

The top-ten list describes the first of these. It is a list of the models Finland has most of on the road, and which therefore change hands most often; a model that has only been on the market a few years cannot get onto it. The second market shows up in the price bands, the body styles, the fuel types and the Uusimaa figures, but not in the rankings at all.

For a buyer one practical thing follows. When someone quotes what a used car costs, the figure comes from between the two groups and belongs to neither, and it is not a useful starting point for your own search. It is better to narrow the search by which of the two groups you are heading into, and that also settles whether the car comes from a dealer or from someone's driveway. The ten models on the list tell you what Finland has, not what a car costs.

Browse cars in the €10,000–14,999 band