Vincentric has handed out its Canadian Best Value awards, and Toyota again topped all manufacturers with 12 honours in model categories and an additional 2 in brand awards.
Vincentric names its Best Value in Canada winners based on a statistical model (which vehicles had a lower than expected ownership cost given their segment and price) and eight ownership factors — depreciation, fees & taxes, financing, fuel, insurance, maintenance, opportunity cost, and repairs. Vehicles were evaluated in all ten provinces plus the Northwest Territories, using a range of annual kilometer intervals and insurance profiles.
Among the interesting findings is that parity seems to be slipping in the auto industry, with four manufacturers taking home 80% of the hardware. Also, multi-repeat winners don’t seem to be losing their edge, with Toyota’s Sequoia and Tacoma claiming honours for the 7th time in the 7-year history of the awards, the Honda Odyssey and Lexus ES 300h for the 6th consecutive time, and Ford F-150 and Toyota Prius also 6-time winners.
“The 2018 model year showed significant consolidation of winners with nearly 80% of the awards going to four manufacturers,” said Vincentric President, David Wurster. “In many cases we are seeing how a vehicle’s lower cost of ownership can more than offset a higher price, often making a higher priced vehicle a better value.”
Toyota divisions took top brand value in the utility vehicle categories — Toyota in SUV, Crossover & Van; Lexus in Luxury SUV & Crossover — and its vehicles brought home individual honours in mid-size car (Camry), hybrid (Prius), subcompact, mid-size, large and hybrid SUV/crossovers (C-HR, 4Runner, Sequoia and Highlander, respectively) and small/mid-size pickup (Tacoma). Lexus brought home honours for the NX (luxury compact and hybrid SUV/crossover), ES (luxury mid-size and hybrid) and RX (luxury mid-size SUV/crossover).
BMW also had a strong showing at the podium, with five model-level awards in addition to the Luxury Car brand-level award for the third consecutive year. Ford took home the truck-brand award for the second consecutive year, while Honda was judged tops in the Passenger Car category.
BMW was judged the top luxury car brand and its vehicles took home awards for the 4 Series (luxury coupe and luxury convertible), 5 Series (premium mid-size and luxury plug-in) and 3 Series (luxury wagon).
Honda also took home a fair share of hardware, being judged the best passenger car brand and taking home individual honours for its Fit (subcompact hatchback), Civic (compact), Odyssey (minivan) and the Acura ILX (luxury compact).
Honda’s totals were matched by Ford, which was named best truck brand and won individual titles in electric/plug-in (Focus Electric) and the large pickup categories — F-150 (1/2 ton), F-250 (3/4 ton) and F-350 (1-ton).
Individual categories were captured by the Audi S7 (premium large sedan), Buick LaCrosse (large sedan), Chev Corvette (luxury sports car), Infiniti QX60 (luxury large SUV/crossover), Jeep Wrangler (compact SUV/crossover), Mazda MX-5 RF (sports car), Mitsubishi Mirage (subcompact) and Subaru Impreza (compact hatchback).