20 CPO rides that are ‘almost as good as new’

Many customers that choose to buy certified pre-owned do so because they want a like-new experience without the price tag.

If this mindset rings true for some of your shoppers, you might want to take note of Autotrader’s latest list.

Autotrader analysts picked 10 luxury CPO vehicles and 10 non-luxury CPO vehicles that are “almost as good as new.”

The must-shop CPO cars offer a similar look to their brand-new counterparts while enabling shoppers to get used-car pricing and a manufacturer-backed warranty.

"New cars can be expensive, particularly if the desired features are only included in higher trim packages," said Brian Moody, executive editor at Autotrader. "In addition, used vehicles can sometimes fuel uncertainty about reliability. Cost-conscious shoppers will find that certified pre-owned vehicles are a great bridge between used and new cars — offering the peace of mind they want with a price tag they can afford."

The vehicles on the list, which include models such as the 2014-2015 Chevrolet Impala and the 2014-2015 Acura MDX, were chosen based on criteria encompassing price, safety rating and warranty details.

"We realized that the criteria for our luxury list was naturally going to differ slightly from that of our non-luxury list," said Tara Trompeter, managing editor at Autotrader. "Luxury and non-luxury consumers want and expect different things, and we took that into consideration when coming up with these benchmarks."

The criteria, outlined by Autotrader editors, is below:

Criteria used for CPO luxury vehicles: a retail price of approximately $50,000 or less; a manufacturer-backed certified warranty; similar look to a current new car; a minimum of 5 years or 100,000 miles of powertrain coverage included in the purchase price; and an overall federal government safety rating of 5 stars.

Criteria used for CPO non-luxury vehicles: a retail price of approximately $35,000 or less; a manufacturer-backed certified warranty; similar look to a current new car; a minimum of 5 years or 100,000 miles of powertrain coverage included in the purchase price; an overall federal government safety rating of at least 4 out of 5 stars; and a warranty deductible of $50 or less (based on results from a recent Autotrader poll that showed a CPO warranty deductible of $50 or less is favored by two‑thirds of the respondents).

Autotrader’s ‘Must-Shop’ CPO Vehicles