Posting from a new account because of how upsetting this situation is. Also was not sure whether to post this in the w204 or w205, decided w205 would be better fitted for this story..

Story: My parents were in the market for a third car during the summer of 2016. They had went to a "reputable" Mercedes dealership and had purchased a CPO 2013 Mercedes C250 Sport. The car's history had looked clean, the carfax had stated that it was a one-owner car with zero accidents and it had all of the services done. The car had a few issues though, such as the steering wheel trim peeling off, scratched buttons, and an improperly placed seat, however it was not a big issue since all of this was covered under the CPO warranty.

About two weeks ago, my parents had taken the C250 to a dealership to fix a gap in the headlights (which has been there since they bought it). After a week in the shop, the service manager had called us and informed us that the car was previously involved in an accident and that was the explanation for the headlight gap. This was quite a shock since the carfax had stated that the car was not involved in an accident and it was certified by the dealership. My parents had taken the issue to the sales manager who had sweet-talked them by saying he will give them an amazing lease offer to make up for the C250.

The deal was that my parents will not be receiving cash back for the C250, and are now given a special lease for a 2016 C300...

....they had leased a 2016 C300 with 6800 miles for 36 months for $499/month with a $2000 downpayment , agreed value was $32,500 and the residual value is $24,334.60...none of those numbers make sense to me...is this even a deal?



tl;dr dealership sold a vehicle involved in an accident as a CPO, dealership trying to apologize by giving a "special" lease deal for a 2016 C300 with 6800 miles for 36 months for $499/month with a $2000 downpayment, agreed value was $32,500 and the residual value is $24,334.60. How much of a deal is this?

 

Seems like a really bad deal.
Isn't it much cheaper to negotiate on the price since you have the leverage in here and buy it for say $28-30k or less?
You get the original and CPO warranty as well and additional 2 years warranty is roughly $1700 change.

 

It really does seem like a bad deal

Dealership only offered the lease to reimburse them and would not do anything else...

good thing there is a two day return policy on the vehicle, might as well take advantage of it

 

That's a rip-off unless your parents have awful credit.

They could lease a 2016 for less under the current MBUSA promos.
https://www.mbusa.com/mercedes/speci...urrent#class=C
This ^rate would be for a base model and with credit >720.

I would press aggressively for a full refund for the C250 that was purchased according to your post. Dealer will likely counter with some improved offer of buyback credit.

If the dealer stonewalls completely or offers up another ripoff deal, I would talk to an attorney and prepare to go scorched earth.

 

Thank you for your input!

Both my mother and father have excellent credit (815,813)

From what both have told me, the dealer would not give them anything for the car and told them that the money they had payed for the C250 only goes for that car and cannot be applied to a different car nor can it be given back to them.

Ouch this seems to get worse...seems like a scam going on here....

 

Is the CARFAX still showing no accidents?

 

Correct, the CARFAX is still not showing any accidents. Dealer said that they would auction the C250 off.


Also, the $2000 was the final amount due at signing and the $499/month includes taxes. The only good news is that the dealer will reimburse them $3000.

Still seems way too high for this particular car, should I tell them to renegotiate
and tell them to go for a '17 instead? Or should we just walk?

 

If you can still walk away clean, walk away. I thought the CPO car was purchased last summer. Are you talking about walking away on the new leased car? Did they already do the deal on the new car?

 

Sorry should have clarified, yes I was talking about walking from the lease. They have done all the paperwork for the lease however, the dealer has a 3-day/150 mile return policy so there is still time to renegotiate/walk.

Oh and the CPO car was purchased on July 8th, 2016. After finding about the incident and bringing it to the dealership they had valued the CPO at ~14k

 

Sorry if all this information is all over the place, I am receiving all this information from my parents about the purchases, as I was not with them at the time.

About the C250, seems like my parents had financed it so this may be the reason why the $$$ will not be refunded. The dealer did pay the full amount remaining for the car when they signed the lease, so nothing is owed for the 250.

The C300 was a previous loaner car. It is a 2016 and includes the Premium Package (P01), rearview camera (218), blind spot assist (234), and heated front seats (873) MSRP new was $42,305. Dealer tried to sell it to them for ~$36,000, oddly enough on the dealerships' website the same car is listed for $33,800, luckily, they managed to get the price down to $32,500.

Also to note, my parents have never leased a car and are easily convinced. Seems like the dealer had tried to win them over by telling them that they are getting a '16 car instead of a '13

Again, there is still the three-day/150 mile return policy. So if this is a rip-off I'll have to tell them to walk far away from the dealer.

 

If the accident damaged was paid out of pocket or the dealer fixed it and not reported to carfax - then carfax will not have a record. The new deal with the lease is called a "trade assist" where by they typically overpay for the trade to put you in a new one...although unless that c300 was a premium 2, multimedia, amg the price does not look too good. Mercedes is known for their trade assist deals mostly to not have to be involved in a lemon law suit. This way they can dump the car in an auction and they only quickly, verbally say "trade assist" vehicle. There is no paper trail, any subsequent owners will find anywhere.

 

Thanks for the explanation. Explains why the carfax does not have a record. Even though the C250 had been in the shop for about a week, the damage was not fixed as the CPO warranty does not cover damage caused by an accident.


Yes, for this particular C300 the price seems excessive, should be with more options. Seems like the parents lose either way though since they were not looking into leasing. Maybe file a lemon suit? might have to walk

 

If they can...walk away from both deals, there are better deals out there. I just bought last week (now I did have someone in the used industry help me.) a 16 c300 4matic, prem2, multimedia pack, burmeister sound, command Nav, led headlamps, heated seats and steering wheel, pano roof 12700 miles...for upper $36K.

 

A couple of issues going on here.

-The fact that a mechanic thinks the 250 was in an accident does not establish that the 250 was in an accident.

-If the car was hit, that alone would not preclude it from being certified. There is an acceptable threshold of body/paintwork for CPO candidates.

-If the hit was in fact severe enough to preclude certification, but the CarFax was clean, the dealership did nothing wrong. Like you, they rely on a visual inspection and the CarFax data to determine if the car was in an accident. If the only tell was an excessive panel gap at the headlamps, and you missed it, it's not surprising that it wasn't flagged in the certification process. Sounds like an otherwise solid repair. (The car obviously drives fine).

-Currently they're not harmed. The CarFax remains clear and the value of the 250 hasn't changed. If they're otherwise happy with it, keep it. If the headlamp gap is bothersome, a body shop can likely re-align the affected panels. (If the gap is the result of the unibody being tweaked, that's another issue. But that should have presented driveability issues... the car can't hold an alignment, it's eating tires, etc. A shop can measure the unibody and determine if it's out of factory spec.)

-I don't see a Lemon Law action here. Lemon Law applies to new vehicles experiencing issues with repeated unresolved warranty claims. As far as certifying the car despite it may have been hit, they're probably off the hook given the clean CarFax.

As far as the lease, I can do a breakout and evaluate the deal but I need the following:

MSRP
Discount off MSRP
Any cash down or due at signing
Dealer Fee
Acquistion Fee
Trade Value
Trade Pay Off
Lease Term
Annual miles
Residual %
State Sales Tax %
The quoted monthly payment

 

Thank you so much for your detailed input!

If I remember correctly the mechanic said that the bolts were loose and the damage has to be from an accident, he also said the rims were loose on the car implying that it most likely is a result from an accident. Again, will look at it again to make sure that it is not an accident and that it was just an assumption. The day they bought the C250 it was taken back dealer to get something fixed and inspected but nothing was mentioned about an accident back then. Again not sure if it has actually been in an accident but they valued it at $14000 because of it

You're right about the lemon law, I was assuming that it would also cover a certified warranty.

I'll attach a picture for the information you requested about the lease

edit: I understand that the dealer isn't at 100% fault here. The car seemed to be fine and drove well. Maybe the previous owner was involved in a minor accident, repaired it, then sold it to the dealer without mentioning it was involved in a collision.

This issue would have been better if they had at least tried to reimburse them in a way. By giving them what seems to be an inflated lease deal, makes me suspicious of the dealer

 

Shouldn't the gross capitalized cost be $32,500 ?

 

Ok. I'll need the actual MSRP + Destination from the Federal Mulroney Sticker. That's the number the residual is based upon. I'll also need the Money Factor, the trade value, the trade payoff. The pic is of the lease breakout. I need the buyer's order.

 

Here's the sticker

 

Sorry this is probably what you were asking for

 

Ok. Still need the trade value, the trade payoff, the residual % and the Money Factor. Email the dealer and they should provide that to you. This is a '16 or a '17?

 

The email to the dealer has been sent, now its a matter of waiting for them to send the details...

And this is a '16

 

Typically a 16 wouldn't be eligible for lease. Was this a service loaner?

 

Correct this was a service loaner with 6800 miles on it.
Still waiting for the dealer to send the requested details, will post them ASAP.

 

The MF and RV on my 2016 c300 was .00123 and 62% if I remember correctly, this was as of 2 weeks ago. This does not look anywhere near as good of a deal as I got.

 

How bad does this look so far?
At this point I might as well tell them to return the car and negotiate something else