I am interested in buying a 2004 clk 320, with 53000 miles on it. the guy is pricing it for $8000, but has a lemon title. I asked him what the problem was, he said it was the key ignition switch to the key. Which I don't know what that means. He said it was fixed 9 yrs ago.


Help please, I am a girl and I don't want to be played.

 

Don't buy it, find another one.

 

Why not?

 

Although $8000 is s good price for the car. There could be lots of things wrong with it. These cars could have some electrical issues. The lemon title scares me. You would have a real hard time selling it if you had too. Take your time. There are lots of good cars out there.

 

Sounds like an EIS failure.

Sometimes apparent lemons see such a good going over by a dealer that everything that could possibly give trouble gets replaced & they can be a very good buy.

I had a product from the Opel stable a number of years back as a company car. Major problems under warranty included 3 clutches, 2 Gearboxes, 3 Propshafts (Centre plunging CV joint failure ~ wrong grease), 1 rear axle failure, 4 Central Locking systems, 2 aircon compressors & a few other niggles.

When it came to trade in the sales manager grabbed the car for his wife. As he said he knows the car. She still drives it & it has never again given a moments trouble.

The engine/transmission combo on a 320 is bullet proof.

If you get it at the right price it may be a deal. You could always have it hooked up to a Star to see if it has faults lurking.

 

Make an appointment with the local MB dealer for a vehicle inspection. The MB dealer will give it a thorough inspection that will catch everything major. The minor stuff may not be caught, but it cannot be helped. Make the seller pay for half the cost. It's well worth the couple hundred dollars for peace of mind.

Otherwise, you are playing with fire. The swimming pool may look tempting, but you don't know what you are diving into. And there's no cheap way out of a mess.

 

If you are in the bay area, here's one from someone I know selling - http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/cto/4214806320.html

Same year and model around that price range, more miles but clean title.

 

The biggest problem with a "lemon" or factory buy-back car is usually in the depreciation. Really, there are very few cars with truly unfixable chronic problems. In fact, I was just "days" away from filing a lemon claim on my W163 ML320 because of horrible front end noise. The dealer had pretty much replaced the entire front suspension and it was still "squwanking" like a 30-year old Chevy pickup truck, but only when it was "damp" outside. Guess what it was? A loose hood latch spring! So, had I pursued that, someone would have needed up with a really cheap ML320 that basically has a slightly loose bolt.

 

At $8000 there is barely any depreciation left I would have thought.