let me toot some ford horn here for a bit.
1-residuals.....its all crap. but take advantage of them when you can. my 500 had a 51% resid on the lease but i know its not gonna be worth that much in 3 year...on the flip side the new taurus....i'm sure they will come close to a 50% resid which is very comparable to any starch brand car. funny thing is the 06 taurus resid was likely terrible.
point is, like carbiz says, it don't matter. when all these 07+ camrys get sold at auction in about 18 months, your beloved camlee will have crap for resale.
2-as far as value goes, go price out a new taurus vs. a camry or an aura. yes the aura is sportier and the camry is 'japanese'. but if the this thread has turned into a let's compare value thread i find it hard to see where a quadruple five star crash safest car in USA largest interior largest trunk great mpg proven top reliability 263hp 6 speed quasiairbag car wouldn't prove out to be a better overall value right now than just about anything on the market. A front drive SEL w/ lthr and roof for 28500 vs a camry is a sick comparo. there is no way to say the camry is the better buy. vs. the aura, you can just say the taurus offers more space and stuff....even if the aura has better drive dynamics. if the taurus holds 50% or better resids off the bat, then any resale argument vs. camry is lost by toyota because toyota is the one fleet dumping and the one you'll lose your ass on owning.
as good a buy as the impala is, i don't even see how anyone can say any version of accord or camry is a value proposition, except for some low feature 4 cylinder models. with the volume the accord and camry whore themselves out at now, there's no way they can continue to keep the resale like they did 10 years ago. all the college yuppies who bought toyohondo have now been joined by the non social elite, who beat on cars and never change oil or spend 1000 bucks at the dealer service bay because some slick service manager talked them into it.