4 Mazdas That Have Surprisingly Low Resale Values - Jalopnik
Jonathan Weiss/Shutterstock Mazda tends to attract buyers who want something a little more interesting than the default choice. "Zoom-Zoom," anyone? The com...
Jonathan Weiss/Shutterstock
Mazda tends to attract buyers who want something a little more interesting than the default choice. "Zoom-Zoom," anyone? The company has built rotary sports cars, turbocharged all-wheel-drive sedans, and family crossovers that reviewers praised for driving more like cars than rolling storage lockers. That reputation makes it easy to assume used Mazdas should command equally enthusiastic prices, unless, of course, abandoning "Zoom-Zoom" to embrace the newer "Driving Matters" tagline was ominous foreshadowing of the egg-shaped crossovers to come.
While a couple of Miata variants currently lead the brand in terms of maintaining their value, alongside more mundane choices such as the Mazda3, CX-30, and CX-5, not every model fares so well. For every Miata owner grinning from ear to ear with the top down and resale value high, there are less satisfying and more problematic Mazda models waiting to disappoint.
This list is not necessarily about which Mazdas are underwhelming to drive or unreliable to live with. Instead, we are looking at a handful of models with resale values that might surprise you, and not in a good way. These are not simply old Mazdas that eventually became cheap. Each offered something appealing, unusual, or difficult to replace, whether that meant an ambitious electric powertrain, a rotary engine, an upscale three-row interior, or a rare combination of turbocharging, all-wheel drive, and a manual transmission. But ultimately, they each also came up short in the eyes of the used market.
Mazda CX-9
The second-generation CX-9 is the relevant one here because it arrived in the United States for the 2016 model year, meaning the five-year-old examples used in current depreciation estimates come from the substantially redesigned version that replaced the outgoing V6 model. It also gave buyers plenty of reasons to expect healthy resale value. It offered respectable speed, a high-end interior (especially for that era of Mazda), and a driving experience that Car and Driver generously compared to a Miata.
Mazda pushed the upscale angle especially hard with the Signature trim, which paired heated second-row captain's chairs with Nappa leather, quilted and piped seating, Santos rosewood trim, patterned aluminum, and unique interior stitching. At $47,210 for the 2022 model year, the Signature was priced like more than a mere school-run appliance. The used market has been less generous. A five-year-old CX-9 now averages about $24,199, and iSeeCars estimates that the model loses 50.7% of its value over five years. By comparison, the Toyota Highlander loses 41.8% of its value over the same five-year period, giving it a nine-percentage-point advantage in value retention over the Mazda. The Toyota also offers more overall interior volume and cargo space, which might help explain how something aiming to be a practical, versatile Miata succeeded fully at neither practicality nor Miata-ness.
The CX-9's premium materials and responsive road manners remain, but buyers no longer have to pay anything close to what Mazda's upscale ambitions once demanded. Heck, the 2023 Mazda CX-9 actually lost its base model, so perhaps we shouldn't have expected this particular crossover to be a value leader in the long term.
Mazda MX-30
Mazda's first battery-electric vehicle offered in the U.S. at least made an effort to be more interesting than an electric appliance. The 2022 MX-30 arrived with rear-hinged "freestyle" doors, recycled interior materials, and cork trim that nodded to Mazda's beginnings as a cork manufacturer. Its eco-conscious cabin and engaging driving character helped it feel more thoughtful than a begrudging compliance exercise, even though Mazda initially limited U.S. sales to California dealerships. At $33,470 before destination charges, however, buyers were entitled to expect an EV capable of leaving its own ZIP code without making detailed plans.
Instead, the story ends with the Mazda MX-30 becoming one of the rarest cars you can buy for under $15,000. The MX-30 offered an EPA-estimated range of only 100 miles, which apparently made the company feel so insecure that Mazda created a program giving owners access to another Mazda for up to 10 days annually during their first three years of ownership – a wonderfully elaborate way to admit that your electric car may occasionally need help being a car.
The company ended U.S. sales after the 2023 model year, and the resale figures now look almost as abbreviated as its range. Kelley Blue Book says a 2022 MX-30 lost 58% of its value in three years and now carries a resale value of about $12,300, placing it among the worst-depreciating 2022 SUVs in its data. That is an especially rough fate for an electric car for American reality.
Mazda RX-8
The RX-8 gave enthusiasts a combination that has only grown stranger with time. Its 1.3-liter, car-nerd-friendly two-rotor engine produced 232 horsepower, while handling was generally considered to be tight, responsive, and fun. It was also far more practical than its mechanical oddity suggested, using rear-hinged back doors and seating designed to accommodate four adults. Add rear-wheel drive and an available six-speed manual transmission, and the RX-8 sounds like precisely the sort of extinct enthusiast car that should now be guarded by collectors wielding microfiber towels and unreasonable asking prices.
Instead, ordinary RX-8 values remain surprisingly low. A 2004 example that started at $25,700 when new now carries a typical dealer price of about $4,400, while Kelley Blue Book places its private-party resale value at just $3,775. Even the broader collector market remains approachable, with the RX-8 Sport carrying a market benchmark of roughly $9,250. The rotary ownership experience helps explain the hesitation, of course. Mazda stated that the engine consumes oil as part of its design and recommended checking the level at every second fuel stop, while later RX-8s received eight-year or 100,000-mile warranty coverage for the rotary engine.
That coverage has long since expired, but its existence does suggest Mazda understood that buyers might appreciate some reassurance. Regardless, the modern story is one of a genuinely special sports car available for ordinary used-car money, provided you consider checking the dipstick a satisfying personal ritual.
MAZDASPEED6
The MAZDASPEED6 was an AWD Subaru fighter that was also horribly unreliable. It will also be punctuated and capitalized differently every time you see it, but we have it right. Anyway, this is where the list ends because it may be the hardest one to explain away. Mazda took an ordinary family sedan and gave it a turbocharged 2.3-liter four-cylinder producing 274 horsepower and 280 pound-feet of torque, then sent that power through a six-speed manual transmission and an all-wheel-drive system capable of directing up to half of the engine's output to the rear wheels.
It was quick, discreet, practical, and just obscure enough to appeal to the sort of buyer who would rather explain a car at every gas station than own the obvious choice. At a starting price of $27,995, it also presented itself as a more civilized alternative to the rally-car theatrics of its turbocharged, all-wheel-drive competition.
That specification should sound like a recipe for collector interest today, especially now that manual-transmission performance sedans are becoming harder to find. The market has not fully agreed. A 106,000-mile 2006 MAZDASPEED6 sold for $9,900 in February 2026, while a 53,000-mile 2007 example brought only $9,500 a few months earlier.
Even the highest recorded Mazda6 sale tracked by Classic.com was an $18,500 MAZDASPEED6 Grand Touring, still well below the original price of a new Sport model. Age, modification, and complicated turbocharged hardware can all temper enthusiasm, but rarity usually gives forgotten performance cars a second chance. The MAZDASPEED6 is still waiting for one. Until then, it remains a fitting conclusion: perhaps the most surprising Mazda here, and proof that the used market doesn't always reward the cars enthusiasts (claim to) want.