South Africans prefer Toyota, VW and Ford when purchasing used cars

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Insights drawn from Lightstone Auto’s transactional data reveal clear trends in consumer preferences when it comes to financing used light vehicles, with these three brands emerging as the top choices among South African buyers so far this year.

Interrogating the most popular vehicle types, the Ford Ranger Double-Cab and the Volkswagen Polo Vivo both lead with a 6% share of financed sales, followed closely by the Volkswagen Polo on 5%. The Toyota Hilux Double-Cab and Suzuki Swift ranges currently round out the top five.

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“Looking at how buyer preferences in the used vehicle space have changed over the last five years, four of the five have appeared in the top five used vehicle types consistently since 2020. The remaining spots in the top 10, however, have rotated among ten other vehicle types over the same period,” says Andrew Hibbert, auto data analyst at Lightstone.

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Fuel-type preferences have remained largely stable over the past five years, with the split between petrol and diesel-powered vehicles being fairly constant, but it is noticeable that the growing popularity of hybrid and electric vehicles is slowly beginning to make inroads among used vehicle buyers. The market share of these vehicles doubled in 2024, and so far in 2025 they account for 1% of all used light vehicles being financed – a small but notable shift.