Maybe I was just too scared and everything (worried about the possible radiator leak, and possible problems with torque converter, power steering rack, and suspension), but I sold my car to the local dealerships. In case any one want to know, I got a bunch of offers from dealers, and the most was $15K for trade in to buy one of their cars, or $14500 to $14000 to buy my car outright without a buy of their cars. Kbb.com said 17000, but I think that site overstates values. Maybe I could get more on ebay or cars.com, but that's so much more hassle. I wanted it gone before some expensive check engine light came on.

It was a 2004 CLK500cab with 77K miles, xenon headlights, phone, and cd changer.

Stupid car. I bought it for 41K 39 months ago, and between 9K in tires and other misc. stupid maintence, and few grand in interest, I spent >$1K per month (40K!!) for this thing. And I only drove it 26K miles. That's $1.50 per mile!!!

I can't believe I wasted my family's money on this car.

I'm going to buy a $800 clunker. I need to pay some penance to gain some karma.

 

Sorry to hear that...but I would never buy a used car for that kind of money. Way too much risk, not enough reward (well, if I could get a Maybach 57 or 62 for that money, with a clean Carfax, I couldn't resist, but that's a different story altogether).

 

best thread ever. hahahahaha.

 

For the longest time I wanted a mercedes Benz but thought this might happend to me, 40K is a lot of money to lose for that short amount of time in any vehicle, sorry for your loss.
I hope you come back to Mercedes soon, next time just compare affordibilty to model ( do your research )and you should be ok.
Good luck
Paul

 

I did do my research. It was the cheapest CLK on the market at the time.

Everything I read said it would be expensive to maintain just like all Mercedes, but that it wouldn't be ridiculous. But I suppose all expensive cars are like this. I bought a $32K S80, and sold it 4 years later for $8000, with not too much maintenance. That's 6K per year, not 12K.

I'll bet we are all spending this much on our Mercedes, but maybe we don't realize it?? I have everything in Quicken, and when I added it up the other day I was like - crap, that was way worse than I thought.

 

you bought prior to its depreciation is what the problem is.
for instance,i work at a dealership who sells all types of cars, but we really specialize in luxury cars and specific exotics that are hard to find.

but, we wont buy a car for retail unless it makes sense for someone to actually buy it. IE we're not going to buy a 2008 C350 because there are millions out there and the price isn't behind MSRP enough to be worth buying it used as opposed to new. instead we just bought a 2006 CL500 with 20K Miles and rather it being $100k new the price of it used is half, at about $44k.

had you bought your car later after it already took it's hit from MSRP, you wouldn't be posting this im sure. not trying to bash you just giving some insight from someone who sells these cars all the time. two or three year old cars with 20-50k miles will sometimes be 30-40% of brand new MSRP. we just sold an 2007 S600 V12 with 26k miles for $69k. the sticker on it was close to $150k two years ago!

 

It was 2.75 years old w/ 50K miles on it when I bought it. I thought I was being smart when I got it. I think it was smart, but not smart enough.

 

I bought my CLK with 35K mi for $19.8. It's only been about 6 months, I've put about 5K into it already, I still think it's worth it... knock on wood.

Just wish I got an AMG instead.

 

There's a CPO 2004 CLK500, 33K miles in LA for $20K. Sounds like you got a fair price. I think if you would have purchased a 4+ year old car at the time, the loss on depreciation would have been much less?