Kelley Blue Book has announced the winners of their 2012 Best Resale Value Awards with Toyota being the best resale value brand and their luxury counterpart, Lexus, topping best resale value luxury brand.

Coming out on top of the list of this year’s top 10 best resale value vehicles however is (In order from first to last): Audi‘s Q7, Chevy‘s Camaro, Honda‘s CR-V, Hyundai‘s Tucson, Infiniti‘s FX, Jeep‘s Wrangler, Lexus’s RX, Nissan‘s Frontier, Toyota’s FJ Cruiser and their Tacoma.

Resale value is always important to those spenders hoping to get the best bang for their buck for their vehicle down the road. But oftentimes these are just estimates and market changes should be taken into consideration as that can impact resale value of vehicles.

[Source: Kelley Blue Book]

Summer is almost over, which means back to school shopping. Forget about pens, pencils and binders; what about picking up a new set of wheels? Surely that will make the thought of heading back to class a little better!

Kelley Blue Book has put together a list of vehicles that it believes will appeal to kids. There are some odd choices though.

The new car picks all seem to be decent, all are affordable, efficient and attractive. However the used choices are surprising. The Kia Sedona probably won’t be very appealing to students because well, minivans are not cool. As well, the F-150 is a pretty large truck and although it is the best selling vehicle in America, it’s hardly fuel efficient. The HHR was also an interesting choice because not many young people drive them. The new vehicles are probably better choices overall, but who knows, maybe minivans are secretly cool among teenagers… or maybe just teenagers trying really hard to be ironic. What do you think?

Check out the list of new and used vehicles after the jump:

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A 2011 Chevrolet Volt will be worth just over $17,000 after 36 months, the length of a typical lease, says Kelley Blue Book. That’s a 42 percent drop in price from the car’s $41,000 sticker price.

Eric Ibara, director of residual value consulting at Kelley Blue Book, says the residual value projection seems low. But the first 200,000 Volts sold will qualify for a $7,500 federal tax credit, effectively dropping the sticker to $33,500. With this KBB number,  the Volt will hold 51 percent of its value, better than some of its rivals. The Toyota Prius, the industry’s best known hybrid, is projected to drop 46 percent after 36 months. Kelley’s projection assumes gasoline will sell for around $4 per gallon three years from now.

[Source: Car Tech Blog]

Despite a year filled with recalls and bad press, Toyota‘s reputation appears to be mostly untarnished, as is evidenced by Kelly Blue Book announcing the Japanese automaker’s cars are the most considered by new car shoppers.

Toyota has just re-established itself atop the most recent Kelly Blue Book (KBB) Market Intelligence Brand Watch study for the third quarter of 2010, after placing second for the past three quarters. Previous to those results, Toyota placed first in every quarter since KBB began the study in 2007.

If nothing else, this survey proves what a long standing reputation for well-built cars can do, even when most of the products in the Toyota lineup are well-past their prime in the marketplace.

Official release after the jump:

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According to the most recent numbers released by Kelley Blue Book, Hyundai now has the strongest brand loyalty among its customers. Over the past year Hyundai owners looking to purchase another Hyundai went up 10.4 percent to a total of 56.4 percent, outranking long-time first-place brand Toyota. Honda, meanwhile, continues to hold on to the second place position.

KBB lists the reason for the jump as both the result of exciting new products from Hyundai like the Sonata and Tucson as well as the Korean automaker benefiting from other factors. Included in those are the Toyota’s recent recall woes and relatively stale products by Honda.

Hyundai has also finally entered onto KBB’s Top 10 Most-Researched New Vehicles list, with the new 2011 Hyundai Sonata now ranking fifth in February, surppassed only by such industry mainstays as the Accord, Civic, Camry and CR-V.

Official release after the jump:

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