No matter how old you were, your first set of wheels likely holds a permanent place in your memory. For many of us, a car symbolized our first step toward independence. It probably wasn’t brand new or flashy, but it was ours. The reality likely hit sooner rather than later, however. The real cost of owning a car goes far beyond the monthly payment or even insurance. There’s gas, of course, along with maintenance, unexpected repairs, registration and inspection fees, and costs that rear their ugly head every few years, like new tires or a battery.

There’s one other factor that many buyers don’t consider: depreciation, or how much value your car will lose over time. It’s not just a myth that a new car loses some value as soon as you drive it off the lot. Most new cars lose up to 20% of their value in the first year alone, and by year five, many have lost up to 60%. There are steps you can take to potentially reduce depreciation before you even buy the car — research the brand, as some tend to retain their value better than others, and pick a vehicle type that is desired, such as pickup trucks and SUVs. There are also things you can do while you own the car to help maintain value. Here are five steps that are sure to give you a boost when it’s time to sell.

If you treat dashboard warning lights as optional suggestions, you may want to change your tune. When it comes to your vehicle, a little preventative care goes a long way, especially if you’re trying to minimize depreciation. Kelley Blue Book recommends that you regularly check fluid and coolant levels and tire pressure and depth. You should also keep a close eye on your wiper blades, check that your battery and cables have tight connections with no corrosion, and change your oil every 7,500 to 10,000 miles on modern vehicles, following the schedule outlined in your manual. If your car is older, you will have to change the oil more frequently.

If the check engine light appears on your dashboard, be sure to have your vehicle inspected by a mechanic as soon as possible. Follow the maintenance schedule recommended by the automaker, and keep meticulous records that you can share when you’re ready to sell or trade in your vehicle. If a mechanic or the dealership recommends a service that you aren’t sure you need, seek out a second opinion. You can also price out expensive repairs and services to find the best deal, but be sure you’re using a reputable mechanic or repair shop.

We’re taught that it’s what on the inside that counts, but when it comes to your car, both the interior and exterior condition matter. To help your car maintain as much of its original value as possible, experts recommend that you clean the interior regularly. Vacuum every few months, and remove the floor mats to clean underneath those as well. Avoid using cleaners with harsh chemicals, and be careful when you dust or clean the dashboard and infotainment system to avoid scratching or damaging the surface. If you have leather seats, use leather cleaner and conditioner to keep them soft and supple.

If you can’t regularly park in a garage, aim for a covered or shaded parking spot. Wash the exterior regularly. Bird droppings, tree sap, road salt and other chemicals are tough on the paint and can even lead to rust spots. Don’t use abrasive sponges or towels, and use two buckets if you choose to handwash — one for soapy water and one to rinse your cloth or mitt. Rinse the soap off thoroughly, and use a clean, microfiber cloth to dry your vehicle.

About 6.5% of new car sales are EVs, and there are many benefits to making the switch to a fully electric vehicle. The most obvious, of course, is saving on fuel costs. While there are costs associated with charging, EV drivers typically save money, especially if they charge at home during off-peak hours. Electric vehicles are also kinder to the environment, producing zero tailpipe emissions, and often offer superior performance, with quick acceleration and great stability. If depreciation is one of your top concerns, however, you probably want to avoid buying an EV, at least for now.

Electric vehicles depreciate faster than gas-powered vehicles – much faster. While a typical car can lose up to 20% of its value in the first year of ownership, an EV may lose up to 40%. After two years, an EV may be worth less than half of its original price. Electric vehicles depreciate faster for several reasons: battery health, the speed at which technology is advancing, high MSRPs, charging capabilities and infrastructure, insurance costs, and even just basic supply and demand.

Some models will depreciate faster than others, so if you want to buy an EV, be sure to do your research. Recharged recommends that you avoid luxury EVs and stick with popular midsize EVs that offer long driving ranges.

Odometer milestones can be fun. Surely we aren’t the only ones that took a picture at 999 or 54,321. But all those miles really eat into a car’s resale value. The average American drives 42 miles per day. Even if you’re only doing that on weekdays, that’s almost 11,000 annually, not including weekend driving and road trips. Unfortunately, the more miles you put on your vehicle, the faster it depreciates. Of course, we’re not suggesting you quit driving to work or school, but there are a few steps you can take to limit your mileage.

First, combine your errands when possible. Have a doctor’s appointment? Stop in at the grocery store or post office on your way home. If you can complete your errand online rather than visiting a brick-and-mortar location, do that instead. Carpool when possible, or use public transportation if it’s available. If working from home is an option even one day a week, that could potentially save you thousands of miles every year. You can also set your GPS to always use the most efficient route, rather than the shortest. It may take you an extra few minutes to reach your destination, but it could save you some wear and tear and miles on your car.

Money may not buy happiness, but it can buy an aftermarket exhaust system or a crazy custom paint job. Just don’t expect a return on your investment when you’re ready to sell your car. In fact, Kelley Blue Book warns that personalizing your vehicle limits your potential buyers and can actually decrease the value of your car.

Avoid modifications that change the body of your vehicle, such as a new spoiler. Loud mufflers also tend to be unpopular, and while you may appreciate an engine modification, it can turn away potential buyers down the road. Any modification that makes your car stand out from the pack, is costly to maintain, or is done on the cheap may have a significant impact on the value of your car.

If you want to personalize your vehicle, stick to inexpensive mods that have a better chance of increasing its value or, even better, that are easy to undo before you sell. If your car is older and boasts a dated entertainment system, an upgrade that adds more modern conveniences such as Bluetooth or wireless connectivity will likely pay off. New tires are always a wise investment, and you can dress up the exterior with fun magnets or removable decals. Avoid stickers that may be difficult to remove or can damage the paint. Inside, you can add personality with seat covers, a steering wheel cover and covers for the knobs and gear shift, just be sure to remove them before you try to sell your car.

To select tips for minimizing your car’s depreciation, we stuck with the old adage of keeping it simple. Our intent was to compile easy, actionable tips to help any owner, whether their car is brand new or they’ve driven it for several years. Because some factors that affect depreciation are out of your control, such as the vehicle’s age and its safety and convenience features, we focused only on depreciation factors that owners can manage.

We also sought out reliable resources such as Kelley Blue Book, which is an expert in automotive valuation, and retailers specializing in used vehicles.

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Keeping your yard in shape can be a lot of work, so you want to make sure you have good tools from a quality brand that you can rely on. One of the more popular options out there is the Home Depot-affiliated manufacturer, Ryobi. The brand has hundreds of gardening and landscaping products available, ranging from corded and gas-powered tools to cordless options that run on Ryobi’s USB Lithium, 18V, 40V, and 80V battery systems. The sheer size of the library of tools is one of the biggest selling points for the brand, as it means that you will have plenty of options available once you commit to a battery system. Better yet, Ryobi releases new tools for your garage and yard year after year.

Ryobi isn’t exactly known for making the most powerful tools on the market, but it is extremely popular in the DIY community due to its high cost-to-performance ratio. Fans have claimed that these green tools will give you 90% of the performance offered by premium brands at half the price. 

That said, even the best cordless yard tool brands miss the mark from time to time, and some of these tools might not be as good as others. Ryobi products rarely fall below 4 stars on the Home Depot website, so one that dips into the mid-3s is a pretty strong indicator that there might be some kind of issue that buyers would want to steer clear of. By taking a look at Ryobi’s lowest-rated yard tools and seeing what users have had to say about them, you can get a better idea about which of the company’s products are best avoided and why.

If you live in an area where many leaves fall in autumn, then getting a quality mulcher can save you a lot of time and effort. It’s also a great way to gather leaves and start breaking them down if you want to use them for compost. Ryobi makes a tool called the Vac Attack Cordless Leaf Vacuum/Mulcher, which goes for $149 and is powered by the brand’s 40V battery system.

This is an interesting tool. It has a heavy-duty vacuum extension on plastic wheels that sucks up lawn debris, passing it through a metal impeller to mulch it before passing it into an attached bag. Ryobi states that this can compact as much as 16 bags of lawn debris down to one. It doesn’t have the longest run-time, but at least it promises 30 minutes on a 4Ah battery. It also has a variable speed dial that allows you to control airflow.

The item was rated 3.1 stars out of 5 on the Ryobi site and 3.4 on Home Depot, with only 62% of reviewers stating that they would recommend it to other buyers. A major complaint is that, while the suction hose has wheels on it, the waste bag simply hangs from the handle. This means that the user has to bear the weight of the gathering mulch. Customers have also complained about having trouble emptying the bag once it’s full, issues with the wheels breaking, and problems with the bag’s seams coming apart. Some have also reported clogging issues. Even though the vacuuming or mulching mechanisms appear to work as intended, there are a slew of other reported issues that appear to have made users feel that the tool simply isn’t worth the headache.

The general rule of thumb for lawn maintenance is that you need three tools: a mower, a trimmer, and an edger. But there are a lot of people out there who only have a small lawn and might not want to invest a ton of money and storage space into three separate tools. This is where the Ryobi ONE+ 18-Volt 12-inch Cordless 3-in-1 Trim Mower might seem like a good idea. It combines all three tools into a single compact and affordable design.

The tool works similarly to the Ryobi Expand-It Attachment System. It has a telescoping power head where you attach the battery. This can be connected to separate attachments, including a pivoting 10- to 12-inch string trimmer with an auto-feed line head that can also function as an edger and a specialized 12-inch mower deck. This easily disconnects via a step release on the back, and it has four-position single point height adjustment (ranging from 1 ½-inches to 3 ½-inches).

It retails for $199 and boasts a respectable 4.1 out of 5 stars on the Ryobi site, where it had just over 50 reviews at the time of this writing. Unfortunately, the score is much lower on Home Depot, where it has over 600 reviews. Here, it only has a 3.5-star rating, with just 62% of customers claiming that they would recommend it. Why? Several users have had issues with the tool’s durability. It seems that the place where the power head attaches to the mower deck is a common breaking point. Multiple others have also complained that several of the plastic components in the string trimmer attachment break easily. The general consensus appears to be that it can adequately handle light-duty work for a while, but you shouldn’t expect it to last more than a year or two.

There are a lot of different kinds of pressure washers out there, and not all of them need to be able to blast the paint off your deck. Some people just want something for washing off lawn furniture and house siding once or twice a year. In those cases, a handheld washer could be a solid option. However, users aren’t exactly sold on the Ryobi ONE+ 18V EZClean 320 PSI 0.8 GPM Cold Water Power Cleaner despite the fact that it retails for just $49.

This is a tankless 320 PSI 0.8 GPM power washer that has three different ways of sourcing water. You can connect it to a siphon hose that can draw water out of a bucket, a 2-liter bottle adaptor, or directly to a garden hose. This, coupled with the fact that it’s cordless, might be enticing to those who want to power wash objects that are far from water sources and power outlets.

This is another one where we see some discrepancies in the ratings, though. The tool has a 4.2 rating on Ryobi’s site, but it only has a 3.6 on Home Depot, with a 73% recommendation rate. The cause of this high number of negative reviews primarily boils down to a single failure point. There have been multiple reports of the water connection port breaking clean off the tool. “I love most of my Ryobi tools, but not this one,” said one user. “The piece of plastic where the hose connects has a plastic wall that is less than 1/16″ thick. When it snaps off, as it inevitably will, the tool is useless.” 

Chopping up soil for cultivation is back-breaking work that can be made much easier with the use of a motorized tiller. One option you might see while walking the aisles of your local Home Depot is the Ryobi 40V HP Brushless 18-inch Rear Tine Tiller. This one retails for a whopping $999, so you can be sure that customers will want it to be worth the investment.

The Ryobi Rear Line Tiller is a heavy duty piece of equipment that is designed to tear through hard earth quickly and efficiently, with Ryobi stating that it “delivers more power than a 208cc gas tiller.” Promising to cultivate up to 3,000 square feet per charge, it has a variable speed, a self-propelling mechanism, and a Transport Mode for moving the tiller without engaging the tines. Additionally, it comes with a nine-position depth adjustment stake and a side shield that protects existing plants from debris thrown by the tiller.

It has a 4.1 rating on the Ryobi site and a 3.6 on Home Depot, with just 68% of customers claiming that they would recommend it. This seems to primarily come down to a couple of issues. Some customers complained that the tool isn’t able to handle dense soil, stating that the batteries pop out when the tool is under load and that it isn’t able to adequately till their land. Another common complaint has to do with the shear pins. These are a deliberate weak point in the design, meant to break when the tiller hits a rock to protect the engine. However, some users have complained that the pins break far too easily, with one customer stating it broke on a 1-inch thick grape vine, and another saying it broke in damp soil.

The final item on our list is the only one that is gas-powered. The Ryobi 3300 PSI 2.4 GPM Cold Water Gas Pressure Washer is powered by a 212cc Carb Compliant Engine, giving it a pretty decent amount of horsepower. It has specialized idle-down tech that allows it to burns less fuel and operate significantly quieter. It has a hand-truck frame with 12-inch wheels, a 0.95-gallon fuel tank, and an onboard soap tank. It also comes with four nozzles: soap, 25-degree, 40-degree, and a second story extension nozzle for cleaning high areas without the need for a ladder. These attach via a quick-connect coupler and can be stashed in the washer’s onboard storage when they’re not in use.

The washer retails for $399. It has been rated 4.1 stars on the Ryobi site and 3.8 stars on Home Depot. What’s really interesting, however, is that only 27% of customers recommend it. Even more odd is that there doesn’t appear to be one single issue that stands out as a primary culprit. Constant engine stalling appears to be the most common complaint, but one person had a wheel break, another has the host fitting break, a third had leaky water valves, a fourth had an oil leak right out of the box, and a fifth had it fail to create pressure altogether. These appears to speak more to a general lack of quality control than to any specific failing in the design.

Ryobi is generally considered to be a trustworthy and reliable brand. The vast majority of its tools are generally well-regarded among consumers and their customer rating scales generally reflect that. In order to find the weakest yard tools in Ryobi’s lineup, I started by organizing the Ryobi Yard Tools section on the Home Depot website by customer rating, and then looking at the tools that ranked lowest. I used the Home Depot site for this as well, as it generally has a larger review pool than the Ryobi site.

Once I had a handful of the lowest-rated yard tools picked out, I examined each of their specifications to illustrate their intended performance metrics. I then looked at the most critical reviews to see if there were any repeated complaints that could indicate a design flaw or failure of performance that caused the tool’s score to be dragged down. This way, readers can be forewarned as to the nature of any weaknesses that these tools might have and make their buying decisions accordingly.