Yeah used values for VAG stuff definitely isnt as firm as it used to be........a mate recently looked into trading his barely year old Limestone GTI manual with leather and keyless immaculate and only around 11k miles....was there or thereabouts a 30k car new was offered about 19k for it. Not v good.
That said Skodas have been similarly afflicted, I had a Fabia vRS and Octavia vRS which i did quite well.on trading them after 18 months and a year respectively.....the Octavia I actually got enough back to put money in the bank and put forward my next deposit. My 23k Mk3 2.0 TDI Elegance, around a year old stood around 13k, probably nearer 11.5k now I should think which is pretty horrendous.
I think these low rate, low deposit PCP's help walk cars out of the showroom doors but then oversupply knackers used prices and people end up stuck in their PCPs unless they want to stump up/ lose thousands in a new deal. As is life I suppose.
Those retained values sound about right to me, the market is pretty ruthless on depreciation, especially in the first year. 3year retained value on a GTI would be in the region between 50-60%, far better than a lot of cars, so with the majority of that 40% hit being taken in the first year, 19k sounds bang on. Not saying it's fair or right, it just is what it is. Don't forget that factory fitted options have little influence on the retained value, it's generally a fixed percentage of the base retail price without options.
The moral of the story is to expect to lose shed loads of money on a new car and not be surprised with the hit when you want to trade out of a 12-18 month old model into another brand new car...
On Order: Mk7 Golf Estate SE 1.4TSI 125 Manual in Metallic Night Blue. Options: Car-Net App Connect, Discover Nav, 2Zone Climate, Net Partition, Silver Roof Rails, Park Assist with Front&Rear Park Sensors. Build Week 33 Confirmed. Stage 5a of 7 (In Transit: Left Factory) received 12th August 2015. stage 5b of 7 received 22nd August 2015.