As big a worry as the depreciation on the 2001 vs the 2002 is, there's also the slight possibility that the 2002s won't even come in -- that happened with the '98 tdi passats.People were waiting for them, had ordered them, and poof, no more tdi passats in the US.Also as fuel prices begin to rise even more this summer the availabilty hassle and price difference might make it not worth waiting. And there's the sanity issue; I would go crazy waiting if I was obsessed about getting a new one.
All that said, basementbrat's right. I just sold a '91 Passat that was 11 years old, one of the first '91s off the boat in the summer of '90. The book value on the car made it seem like a 10 year old car instead of an 11 year old one, which was worth something. Still, the car was in damn good shape for 11 winters in northern New England.