I was just looking through the 2002-2003 C-Class cars available on Ebay and noticed that 13 of the 32 available were coupes. This sure isn't helping resale any.

 

The MSRP on mine was $3X,XXX in Dec. When I picked it up. Now with 6,XXX miles I was offered $20,000 on a trade in...nearly $10,000 and 1/3rd of the cost in around 6 months.

Erik

 

Try doing what I do: buy a car and then keep it for at least fifteen years. Depreciation becomes meaningless. Car loans are nothing but a distant, bad memory. The lemming-like automotive trendiness of the "marketing-manipulated" people is fun to ridicule. Believe me, there's no joy like wathcing six generations of Honda Accords come and go during the time you've hung on to your one and only

Most modern cars will easily top 200,000 miles with decent maintenance. And an M111-powered Benz should be good for 250,000+. That's quite a few years' worth. My 405 is going to top 200,000 miles sometime next year (180,000 now).

If you're lucky, by the time you want to sell the C 230 K, it might already have become a classic

 

Be glad you didn't buy a domestic car. All the 0% offers have dragged EVERYTHING down.

 

Resale/depreciation of the coupe may be made worse by the availability of the new C230 sedan... Fits in with more "mainstream" drivers, IMO...

 

Its several factors...

economy
0% offers
230 Sedan
$4,000 rebate on 230 coupes
Etc..

I bought this car knowing I will have well over 100,000 miles within 5 years and that when I turn around to sell it I will get a little more then a civic would in value. I also looked long and hard at other cars to make sure this was the car that I wanted for this amount of time. I am very happy with my choice and know that I won't be looking at another 'everyday' car for quite some time.

Erik

 

everyone knows that the trade in value is a lower figure anyways....... that is the reason why many people sell through private party ads.

Am I right when i say that depreciation hits you hard for first 2 years and then pans out. Thus if you keep your car for 4-5 years then it shouldn't be a problem.
On the other hand, you could keep something like my truck around for 10 years and put 400K miles on it Oh yah..... She paid for herself 2 times over Only 2 small rust spots but otherwise perfect paint and interior. People don't believe me til they see the odometer. For her 400K anniversary she is getting an organ transplant and plastic surgery

 

I researched resale value trends for the C230K before and found the sweet spot at about 4 years. Keep it another 4 years after that and the resale value drops more in the second 4 years than in the first 4. Also when you factor in the free maintenance, free warranty repairs and newer safety features, it's the way I go.

 

I had just posted on the "Deal of the year" thread which described that I bought a 2003 coupe with a $5700 discount in Maryland. That's part of the reason why the resale value of this car would not hold.

 

Same here. I went 7 years in a 95 Ranger with no A/C, or power anything. I sold it to my uncle for $5k with 90k miles. I spent 3 years trying to find a replacment. This is the only car in my price range that excited me so, I should be satisfied with the coupe for at least 5 more years.

 

Resale value will suck on any new model vehicle. They are just starting to really get traded in and we have not seen any at our auction yet. Manheim has only seen 29 of them accross all 79 of there auto auctions. Averaging 11,000 miles and selling for an average of $19,839. In January they were selling around $20,720.