Used car values declined by 0.7% in January as dealers saw lower retail demand for vehicles priced over £12,000, Cap HPI has reported.

The car data expert said that the drop was larger than the seasonal trend where, over the last five years, the movement in Black Book Live for January was an average of 0.4%.

Downward movements were visible in each mainstream sector, with MPVs and SUVs the worst affected, it said.

SUV values edged down by 1% on average, due to supply slightly outweighing demand.

Within the trade sold data analysed by Cap HPI, the annual volume of data for SUVs has almost trebled in volume in six years.

Derren Martin, head of UK valuations at Cap HPI, said: “In 2013, SUVs accounted for 10% of the sold volume and by 2018 it was over 20%.

“Overall trade volumes received have increased but more so for SUV, with close to 400,000 records scrutinised last year for this sector alone.

“While SUVs usually sell well, certain examples of SUVs struggled to achieve previous cap values in January, so moved down by more than the norm, examples were Audi Q3, BMW X3 and Range Rover Evoque.”

The news was slightly different in the electric vehicles (EV) sector, however, where values remained buoyant.

Mainstream EVs like the older iteration of the Nissan Leaf, the BMW i3 and the Renault Zoe drove a value rise of 1.2% at the three year, 60,000-mile mark.

Martin said that uncertainty around the economy and the Government’s direction with Brexit could impact the market.

He said: “With so much uncertainty over the structure of any deal, it is impossible to predict what might happen to the used vehicle market.

“On the one hand, an economic downturn could lead to a difficult used car market, but if new car supply were to be affected by exchange rates, leading to price increases, this could push more consumers into the used car arena. Only time will tell.”