jago1244

ok , had car in service for little pano creak..thought i'd get a feel for market valiue so i asked for appraisal.

6mos into service life and less than 10k miles, see my sig for loaded options list..car listed at 70k, invoice near 65k, and they show a 46k bid.
thats 30% deprec from INVOICE! WTF is that *****??

anyone else get a fair trade-in idea?
(no i dont know what else i am getting next. maybe nothing until next winter)

either the MB brand is dying an ugly death or the dealer thinks i am imbecile. left flaming voicemail for the appraisal guy.
the good news is next call goes to the attractive blonde who runs the place!
j.

SAguirre

This is common to all cars. US domestic brands tend to do even worse. It is how the dealers make huge profits. They just love selling nice used cars and make a bundle. If you are the kind of person who likes to trade cars to avoid the hassle of selling the car yourself, then you always PAY dearly for that. If you car came in at about 45K, I bet they would sell it on their lot for at least 55k. The other trick they always do is lower the price of the car you bought but kill you on the trade-in (or the reverse).

I keep such good records and maintain my cars so well that I have always been able to sell my cars on my own right away. The trick is that I still run the sale of my car through my dealer so that I get a sales tax credit on the new car. Some dealers will act as if you traded the car to them for the price that the buyer you found will buy it for, but they buyer you found pays the dealer. At 7.2 % sales tax, this saves me thousands of dollars in sales tax on the new car and gives me a higher trade in value. I saved about 9k this way on the last car I bought. It took me about 5 hours of work to sell the car myself and get the dealer to do the paper work, but I thought it was worth it. This dealer did all the work free of charge so they could get the sale, but others will charge you a little.

I know this is a hassle, but if you don't like doing that much work, then you pay.

Steve

DalBenz

Same here. I have sold my own cars. With the internet (Cars.com), I get calls from all over the country. Usually sell in about 30days and several $k more than trade in. Didn't think to go thru the dealer! Will have to look into that next time. Good point!

luxury1

I don't know if I would ever try to sell my car again. People will waste your time asking you all types of questions about your car, they will look at it closley and then ask you how much. If it is more than $25.00 then they think it is too much. They will also set appointments and not keep them or just blow you off entirely. Crazy.

I tried to sell my '00 3 series and '02 5 series both in near perfect condition. I spent hours and hours and hours with people who wasted my time. The end result both times was trading it into the dealership.

You also have to think, if you were buying a new very expensive car, would you prefer to buy it from a person you don't know and will never see again or a dealership. I would rather spend the extra few thousand and buy it from a dealership.

Anyway, the price they threw out there is just a starting price. This is when the negotiations start. Also, whenever buying a car you need to have two separate brands in mind that you tell the dealer would be perfect for you. This encourages the dealers to present more aggressive pricing. For example, you might say the 5 and the E are both great and you would be happy with either car. You then leave for a day or two and tell the MB dealership that you like both cars a lot but the other deal is just better so it looks like you are going with that one. The MB dealership is forced to counter (typically) and you end up with a better deal. This isn't always true because some dealerships don't negotiate as much as others. The west coast will discount way higher than the east from what I have heard on this forum...

Hope this helps!

neutronium

They all do that.

I recently swapped cars around. I managed to move the value on my trade from 35 to 47.5 by coming up with comparables, kbb pricing, etc and negotiation.

I also had negotiated the price of the car prior to talking about a trade in.

Never give them two variables and remember they are in this to make money.

Don't be offended and get upset. First and fastest way to lose in negotiation? Get emotional and / or get attached.

hlkc

neutronium,

I can't agree with you more. I just trade in my E500 for CLS too. I know they are there to make money like all of us somehow somewhere but if they make too much/rip us this time then we will go somewhere else. On the other hand, I think MB resell value is getting worst and worst. Hope the new chief can do something about that.

Thanks,
hlkc

krispykrme

You should be happy. W211 currently has the worst resale value in the class. Not to mention that MB is blowing off the car like there is no tomorrow with huge incentive ( you can get a car for about $4~$5k off invoice).

$46k is low, but not that outrageous as you think. This is no lexus we are talking about. W211 does not hold value like old mercedes product does.

hlkc

krispykrme,

You are right! But they should not sell the car the way you described and leave all W211 owenrs feel the pain at the end of the day. How can we appreciate Mercedes anymore? They should invest more money into the cars like Bluetooth and other cool things. My advise is that they need to make the car worth more and cost less in return the buyers will line up and waiting to buy rather than using all incentive/discount to get rip of the car in the lot like no tomorrow...

Don't get me wrong, I love MB and own many so far but the way they continous doing that I am not sure how long can I hold on. Of course they don't care 1 less customer like me.

Thanks,
hlkc

JDM

..the more expensive the car, the bigger the hit, especially in the first 2 years. Lets say you can get a 5k rebate on a brand new one with an invoice of 65K, and buy it for 60. (the dealer gets the 5k back from the manufacturer) therefore making his holdback only. Then you turn around and trade it in. Now its used, how much would you pay for it considering you can buy it brand new for 60K ? 46k is a reasonable starting bid, probably maxing out not much higher than that, as it will have to list for less that 60k, and then the buyer will negotiate down, probably to 50k. 4-5k$ return on 46K is not very good return, but it's the car business. They dont make what you think they do.

krispykrme

I don't think they are doing this to **** customer off. They are trying to hold on to market share while trying to get quality issues resolved, as well as improve the product offering.

This is not like 20 years ago, that mercedes stood for quality and luxury. Consumer are getting smarter and smarter. The new GS in its 1st month took quiet a bite of market share away from W211. W211 is simply not selling as hot in US. The product itself is dated compare to compeition. Quality wise is also subpar. The only thing they can do is blowing off the inventory and hope that in time that quality will improve and customer will buy the car for what is worth instead of a marque.

To some extent BMW is also blowing off E60 with new engines coming (not to the extent as W211, but significant). BMW at this time has better product and better quality to boot. Yet it still needs incentive to move its inventory.

Sometime a company has to do things to maintain market share and hurt loyal customer in the process. But this simply makes business sense to MB.

Unless MB did a dramatic turn around like infiniti is doing right now. You will see MB struggle along for a while. Simple as that.

jago1244

for another perspective, to buy the w211 , i traded a 2002 e430 4matic with 35 months in service. they gave me 50% of orig msrp, (30k bid on 60k msrp).
thats a deprec rate of 1.5% per month. the 46k w211 bid is 65% of msrp, and deprec rate of over 5% per month. the car would have to deprec less than 10k the next 30 months to match 3yr resale rate of my w210.

larryssf

What is the truth about dealer "cost"? Many Mercedes customers are of the belief that the dealership is limited to a 7% markup plus the 3% holdback which is termed interest subvention (to compensate for interest expense prior to sale). Gross profit is also composed of a quarterly MB rebate of up to 10% for every unit sold. The payment varies during the year and is model specific. It is also dependent on the dealership CSI (customer satisfaction index) which is continually monitored by MB USA. Ever wonder why so much attention is paid to that by the dealership? So the potential total gross margin can be as much as 20%. If the dealer sells at 3 or 4% below MSRP, he still makes 16% profit on units that on average sell for $50M plus. This little secret is the dealer/manufacturer response to all the internet savy buyers who believe that they know dealer cost. Not hardly.

It is true that greater markup is available from used car sales, but new cars are not too far behind. :p

lorinserbenz

I got 47K in trade for my 05 E320... Sticker was 59k before the price increase.

krispykrme

That would also depends on how much they made on the new car.

They can give you a higher trade in if you pay higher price on the new car. It's all relative.

jago1244

ok, so i go to pick car up after 1-day delay , during which time the guy says he took closer look, and at first 'thought it was '04' and didnt really see all the options..yada yada.
now the bid is represented as (to paraphrase him) 50k easy, prob a couple grand more, and if market was stronger 55 or so, which would be my target if i pull the trigger.

kk, you are correct re the relative value thing..yes.

j.