creynolds247

All,


My wife and I are looking at purchasing a 2013 model year GLK (most likely the 4-magic).

Anyway, I am aware that 2015 model information will be released soon with models likely to arrive sometime in September / November if my research serves me correctly.

As we are new to the US, we are not that familiar with the auto markets here, will the arrival or even announcement of the 2015 model drastically affect the 2013 preowned residuals? Or is it likely to go unnoticed?

Thanks,

Chris

kozak79

Best time to buy is always end of December as all the sales people are trying to get all the commission in before year's end. At least that's what my friend at MB told me. Otherwise, anytime and the end of the month, as sales people have quotas that must be met by month's end.

rmfnla

I like that...

NYCGLK

The best time to buy used car is when you can find one that was well taken care of, has right options and a good price.

I'm not sure what you are really gaining by buying 2013 vs just getting brand new one. Keep in mind that MSRP is not what you should expect to pay. There is a lot of room to negotiate. Then factor in costs like extra warranty, financing cost, available choice, risk of car not being properly broken in for a used car and you are not saving much by buying 1 year used GLK. They hold values pretty well. Mine is 5 years old and they are selling for $30-35 (I bought new for 44)

Nov/Dec is only good for inventory leftover.

There should be no drastic changes for GLK for 2015. Next gen GLK is expected in 2016-2017.

creynolds247

Thank you all for the replies.

We are looking at the CPO option as it offers an unlimited warranty that can be extended a further 2 years, so potentially offering us 6 years or so of worry free motoring.

We had considered new, but with the mileage limitation on the warranty it didn't sit too well with us.

We are at the early stage, so we know that we want a GLK and will explore all of our options. - Out of interest, what kind of discount could we expect on a new GLK?

Chris

sethro1980

I didn't get a huge discount, but mine was listed at $36,900 and I believe I paid $35,500 after negotiating. It is a 2013 4Matic GLK350 with Premium Package 1 and illuminated sills and panoramic roof in palladium silver. It had 22,000 miles, which seemed a bit high to me, but as a CPO, it had maintenance records and came with an extra year to the standard warranty that is good for 100,000 miles. I might have been able to get it new in the $40k range if I negotiated hard, but saving over $4k with what I think to be a better warranty option was appealing. My only regret is that I didn't go with a Blutech, but none were for sale or had been for sale in my area, and I needed a new car. I think it is good to buy a one year old CPO...let someone else take that first year depreciation hit!

thenew3

You may want to visit a few larger MB dealers. I've known several people that got $6k to $8k off brand new GLK350's. That makes it about the same as a 1 year CPO price. You can add a 3 year warranty extension for around $2k to $3k giving you 7 years 135k mile warrant.

glayfan40

+1, and if you really drive that much (>15K mi/yr) the diesel would be a better option for you in the long run if you intend to keep the vehicle for a a while. That is, if you don't live in an area where diesel fuel is scarce of course.....

creynolds247

Thank you gents.

I am avoiding the diesel model, a) fuel is still relatively affordable in he US and b) i do not like the fluid requirements of the diesels etc. Having seen the problems that some diesels suffer in Europe, I am not a huge fan of these, especially with some of the fuel types available throughout the US.

I have been looking through the new models, but we haven't found one with a spec that we would like, at the price point that we would be happy with. The rear camera is a must for us and that means multimedia package along with premium 1 as well, which pushes the price up considerably.

Thanks
Chris

bop11

Many large dealers have 1 year leases that should be coming due. Talk to a dealer and have him put you on the list. A 1 year old CPO with 6-10k miles will take a lot off the price with usually a vehicle in pristine shape.

NYCGLK

say what? I'd be very careful about the warranties...make sure you read the fine print. They are not as simple as you think.

Your CPO car is still covered by original 4y/40k mile warranty. CPO usually adds another year/10k miles to that (for which you pay because CPO cars cost more money than non-CPO). For any extra warranty you will have to pay more, and usually 2-4k depending on number of years and mileage. You can always do this with a new car, which I don't recommend because it costs A LOT of money. Just put that amount in a savings account and use it for repairs, I bet you will have money left over in 6 years. With a new car you basically saying: "I expect something to go wrong in exact years 5 and 6 for the amount of more than 2-4k." If you have a car for 4 years that is regularly serviced, you should have a good idea if it's a bad apple or not. GLK is pretty simple car, and most likely big ticket items will either fail early (defects) or way later.

I'm not sure what the pricing is now, it depends on many things. During 2009 (recession years) I bought 50k GLK for 44k, (invoice price). There were even better incentives that I missed. Of course the market may have changed, if dealers have too many used cars, they may be more willing to negotiate on used cars than new.

Bottom line, if you are planning to keep the car for 6-8 or more years, why not get the one that you want and the once that you can properly take care off from day 1.

And don't too much faith into car being CPO...I just read horror story for CPO GL needing new motor because dealer put in oil additive during their certification process (against MB's warning not to put any oil additives).

creynolds247

Thank you for the reply.....

The original warranty is 4yr/50,000 miles of which the car will be covered. The new CPO warranties are 12month from the expiration of the existing new car warranty with unlimited mileage. The customer has the option to extend if they wish.

I accept the logic behind putting money aside etc. in lieu of the warranty, but the piece of mind of a manufacture backed warranty is very appealing.

We have looked at new models, but the difference in price is close to 17k or more, which is simply not worth it. Plus, the exact model that we are looking for isn't available as we are looking for a car with park tronic....if we can't find one with that then we may as well compromise with a pre-owned model.

Obviously there are horror stories everywhere you look when looking at cars, look at the GLK bluetec issues from new, or leaking roofs on SL's, or the latest engine failure on the Porsche GT3.

Chris

thenew3

I'm not sure where you are looking to see a 17k difference between new and a 1 year old cpo.

I'm seeing only a couple thousand difference.
for example my local dealer has a 1 year old GLK350 with 13k miles listed for $40k cpo. brand new that vehicle had a $50k sticker. with an $8k discount, that works out to be $42k brand new. so new and cpo is $2k difference.
Granted the CPO will give you 1 more year of warranty, although CPO warranty doesn't cover everything bumper to bumper like the original warranty.
For another $3k or so, you could add a 3 year 135k mile warranty to a new glk350 making it 7 year 135k total warranty.

With such high discounts on new, it doesn't make much sense to get a cpo.

NYCGLK

Ahhh ok...I get it now...because CPO is only extra year, they don't bother with the mileage. Most CPOs are low mileage cars anyways, so there is little chance you would accumulate that many miles...and even if you do, most of them would be highway miels, which does little harm to the car.

I just went to cars.com. 2013 GLK that had MSRP of 45k when new is selling for 36k (cheapest 2013 in my area). I don't believe standard equipment changed much, so you can compare new 2013 45k GLK vs CPO that is selling for 36k. Let's factor in 5% discount on both and you are looking at 34k vs 42k, difference of 8k...not 17k. Likely you would get even better discount on the new car. There are still savings in buying used car, obviously, they are just not as significant as many tend to think.

Can't go wrong either way if GLK is what you want. Just make sure you have a good dealer in your area.

balticgreen

The 2015s will most likely start to hit dealerships before September. Think more like July. Sadly, they will probably start to hit dealerships BEFORE any information about them is officially released. I was shopping last year in July and August and mbusa.com was out of date, dealerships didn't have the 2014 brochures yet, etc. even though I was test driving 2014s from the lot.

Not drastically. If the 2015 were going to be a brand new model then preowned models would take a bigger hit but the facelift already happened (for 2013) and the 2015 will mostly be a carryover with maybe some minor options changes. The 2016 should be the new model so you're still a year away from that impact on used prices.

dmbolp

Bought a 2012 in August 2012 with 2013s on the lot...got all $8,500 in options for free plus 3 year maintenance and an extended warranty...so highly recommend at model year change.

LeeMB

At the end of March we went in to look at a 2013 GLK350 that had been a dealer loaner for service customers. It had 17,000 miles, a few options like the premium 1 package and heated seats. They were asking $37,500. It was in pretty good shape but had a few wear and tear marks on it. A new 2014 list price was $45,500. We ended up going with the new model and paid $41,250. I don't know how much they would have come down on the used model but we thought $3750 for a new one with zero miles and no dings or swirls in the paint was worth it. We also ended up purchasing the extended 7yr/75,000 mile warranty for a very reasonable price. If you're interested in extending your warranty and your dealer isn't in the mood to dicker call Jeff (jjj benz on this forum) at Tafel Motors and he'll work with you. Easy money for him and a good deal for you.

creynolds247

Many thanks all.....

We have looked around and it looks like we are doing a deal on a CPO 2013 down in Florida.....

We looked at new vehicles but the price difference was too great and we are planning on keeping this car for a good while so could not justify the increase in costs over a new vehicle.


Will update the forum as/when/if all works out with photographs.

Thanks,
Chris

davidjohnbamber

Our situation was just the opposite. We were unable to find more than a handful of used GLK BlueTecs, both private sale or at a dealer in the US. We found a new GLK250 with nothing more than a prewire for a Map-pilot, down at MB of Scottsdale. We got a great deal going through Costco, and a fair trade in on our Jeep. MB Finance sealed the deal with a 1.99% APR for 72 months. The few used GLK250's we found were more than the list price of what we bought.

hondafan

I sell at a dealership so I wanted to chime in about when to buy. Honestly, there's not as much to be said about doing things at the end of the month as everyone says. I personally have gotten deals for my customers around 10% off sticker to get a new car sold. I have some 2013s still on the lot and am offering up to $5000 off right now, but I also was able to get a customer wanting a specific color and feature to $4000 off of a new 2014. This was during the first week of this month. We want to sell cars any time, not just at the end of the month, and any dealer that doesn't is just stupid. You can get a car below invoice (and they'll show you dealer invoice if you ask for it) and you can comfortably get $500-1000 off of that. $500 is the range I would expect, but $1000 is what I would ask for.

The dealership receives money back to make up losses on a new car in 2 ways.
1. They receive rebates for actually selling the car.
2. In financing, depending on which bank is used, we get cut back a check as a referral fee to get them a new customer. We get a better financing rate than the customer gets approved for because we do so much volume, and therefore, we get paid to sell that financing. For example, customer A gets approved by their own bank for 2.99% financing, but if we source the loan for the customer, and bring that business to the bank, the bank gives us a 1.99% rate, which the customer couldn't qualify for naturally anyway, so that extra 1% is calculated and the dealership makes a cut of that money (say $500).

The sales guy won't make much on the deal, but he gets to sell a car, and the dealership gets to show volume.

Some dealerships are harder to work with and sell with shady tactics, but find whichever one is the #1 dealer in the area and you'll get the best deal there most of the time, because they have more discount power because they can make up the slim margin on the next buyer.

creynolds247

Thank you Hondafan.

I used to work in a dealer in the UK - I was unfamiliar with the new model year price changes as used values seem very strong in general in the US.

Unfortunately, as we have just arrived in the US (FOB) and consequently, we do not have any credit history whatsoever so obtaining financing is off the table - shame as that is where you can usually get a better deal. So to the dealer (stealer ) we are a cash buyer and consequently won't make a huge deal off us, apart from the margin on the vehicle and the extended warranty if we chose this.

Chris

Alex Bel

Yes, with ED I've got $1600 below invoice (10% off MSRP) and no destination fee. Plus I've ordered exactly what I wanted and did not waste any time on negotiation.