Did the 2026 Iran conflict move Gulf used car prices?

The claim goes like this: the war cut the flow of new cars into the Gulf, so used prices would rise. In April a columnist at AGBI predicted it in print, writing that “used-car prices may increase, as the total absence of new cars leaves us with empty showrooms” (AGBI, 17 April 2026).

We can test only part of it. Our index of Dubizzle listings started on 19 June 2026, two days after the United States and Iran signed the Islamabad Memorandum (Wikipedia, 2026 Iran war ceasefire). We hold no price of our own from before the memorandum, which means none from the first months of the war. We also cover the UAE only, so “Gulf” in the title means the UAE market here, not Saudi Arabia or Qatar.

The short answer

A rise during the first months of the war is not measurable. Our factsheet records the “before” side as external source only¹, and we found no published used car price series for the UAE with a method we could check.

After the memorandum, the measurable part, the weekly medians of recorded asking prices show no consistent direction between mid-July and early October. Some models ended higher and some lower, and several swung widely between their lowest and highest week. The Nissan Patrol was at AED 145,000 in the week of 13 July⁴ and AED 143,090 in the week of 5 October¹⁵. The Toyota Land Cruiser went from AED 230,000¹⁸ to AED 246,000²⁹, and the Mercedes-Benz G-Class from AED 555,000⁴⁶ to AED 457,000⁵⁷.

Where the claim comes from

The war started at the end of February. Gulf News was counting “Day 33” on 1 April (Gulf News). It landed on top of Ramadan, which ran from 18 February to 20 March this year and is normally the busiest selling season for car dealers in the region (AGBI).

The same AGBI piece collected what dealers saw. The founder of one dealership, Park Lane Motors, said most dealerships sold about 20% below their usual Ramadan levels and that the cancellation rate on deposits was around 35%, and Sebastian Fuchs of AutoData Middle East said finance requests had dropped by more than 80% (AGBI). Petrol jumped too: Super 98 went from AED 2.59 a litre in March to AED 3.39 in April (Gulf News).

So two forces pulled in opposite directions. Fewer new cars should push used prices up. Buyers holding off, with far fewer of them asking for finance, should pull them down. Which one won during March to June is the question nobody we read has answered with data.

What we looked for before 19 June

We tried to find a “before” figure to set against ours. YallaMotor’s Q1 2026 report gives price ranges by model year, for example a 2020 to 2022 Land Cruiser at AED 130,000 to AED 245,000 (YallaMotor). It names no sample size and no method, and its model-year bands do not line up with our medians, so comparing the two would be guessing. The before-and-after comparison stays n/a.

The period we can see was not calm either. On 13 July Iran’s foreign ministry said the memorandum had “practically ended” (Shafaq News). If fresh tension moved used prices, the weeks after mid-July are where it would show.

Recorded asking prices, July to October

Each figure below is the median of the prices recorded in one week: a car newly listed, or a seller changing the price. It is not the price of every car on sale that week, which is why it jumps around. The low and high columns are the lowest and highest weekly medians between the week of 13 July and the week of 5 October.

Swipe sideways for more columns

Reading the table without fooling yourself

The Patrol, the Prado and the Altima finished where they started. The Land Cruiser looks up, from AED 230,000¹⁸ to AED 246,000²⁹, but in the week of 20 July it recorded AED 195,000¹⁹, so a start-to-finish comparison tells us little. The Pajero went from AED 27,000¹⁷³ to AED 34,250¹⁸⁴, yet its weekly medians ran from AED 24,000¹⁷⁶ to AED 38,000¹⁷⁸ in between.

The table is a selection of the models in the factsheet, and the others also moved in both directions. The Porsche Cayenne went from AED 88,000¹⁸⁷ to AED 166,205¹⁹⁸, and the Mercedes-Benz S-Class from AED 153,950¹³¹ to AED 95,000¹⁴². Nothing in this data ties either move to the war.

The Range Rover is the warning case. Its median went from AED 119,000³² to a peak of AED 237,499⁴⁰ and back to AED 182,950⁴³. That probably reflects the mix of cars rather than the price of any one car: a week when several recent Range Rovers are listed or repriced lifts the median on its own. We have not tested this. The G-Class falling from AED 555,000⁴⁶ to AED 457,000⁵⁷ needs the same caution in the other direction.

One series moved more steadily than the rest. The Mercedes-Benz A-Class was at AED 119,999 in the week of 3 August²¹⁹ and slipped most weeks after that, to AED 101,499 in the week of 5 October²²⁷. The starting week rests on only 29 recorded prices²¹⁹. We do not know why, and nothing in our data ties it to the war.

The Patrol is the cleanest test because it has the most records. It went from AED 145,000⁴ to AED 144,250⁵, AED 138,450⁶ and AED 132,500⁷ (the week of 3 August), then back to AED 143,722 in the week of 17 August⁸. A similar dip came again in the week of 24 August, at AED 135,000⁹. We cannot tell whether either dip is a price move or a change in which cars were listed that week.

Petrol prices and an outside index

Fuel is where the war showed up in what UAE drivers paid. Super 95 hit AED 3.83 a litre in June and was cut to AED 3.29 for July, the first cut in four months (AGBI, June 2026). On a big petrol SUV that difference adds up every month.

An outside index covers the later months. ArabWheels published the GCC Car Deals index, which shows UAE used car asking prices up 0.59% month on month in September, and down 0.25% when the same model years are compared, across 16,286 newly listed cars (ArabWheels, 7 October 2026).

What this means if you are buying

If a seller justifies a high price with the war or “no new stock”, the asking prices recorded since July do not show a sustained rise for the Patrol, the Prado or the Altima, and for other models the weekly medians swing too much to show a trend. We cannot speak for March to June. Hundreds of Patrol prices were recorded in the week of 5 October alone¹⁵.

The decision rule: open the model page (for example the Nissan Patrol or the Toyota Land Cruiser) and run the car through the Check a seller’s price page. If the asking price sits above the top of the fair band, ask for the difference back, or keep looking. If you are torn between the two big SUVs, put them side by side in compare, and see what fuel adds to the five-year cost on the running-costs page.

For brand new cars we do not measure showroom stock or delivery times. Get the delivery date in writing before you pay a deposit.

How we measured

All market figures come from our index of Dubizzle UAE listings, from 19 June 2026 to 7 October 2026. A price is recorded when a car is first listed or when its seller changes the price. We keep GCC-spec cars only and take the median of the prices recorded each week, by model. A week with fewer than 10 recorded prices for a model is shown as n/a in the factsheet, which is why some early weeks are missing for several models.

There was no sweep of the site in the weeks starting 29 June and 10 August, so those weeks have no figures. The week of 6 July was a near complete pass over every listing, a different kind of sample from the weeks that only record changes, so we left it out of the table. The week of 5 October was still running when the factsheet was built on 8 October, so its figures include records up to that day.

Sample sizes vary by model and week. The Patrol has 279 recorded prices in the week of 13 July⁴ and 415 in the week of 5 October¹⁵, the Land Cruiser 201¹⁸ and 316²⁹, the G-Class 99⁴⁶ and 126⁵⁷. These are asking prices, not sale prices, and a listing that disappears has not necessarily sold. The full method is on our methodology page.