I have 03 E320 w/o Nav, which I paid $52K. I expected to retro fit with Nav in March ’03 time frame. I bought with expectation of retrofitting Nav in my car – like many of you.
We all know rest of story.
Dealer has promised me $3250 rebate coupon, which expires at end of month.
Went to dealer today to check cost of getting into 04 E320, same exact options plus Nav.
Cost was $14,000.
I do have 22,000 miles on car, rest of car is perfect. Dealer offered me $33K for trade in. Allowing for mileage, is it reasonable to expect over 30% reduction in value in less than one year?
To say the least, I am very disappointed in MBUSA, and am having hard time in dealing with this type of reality.
And if dealer trade in is real, am really disappointed in retained value of MBZ – loosing 30%+ in one year is bad investment and I have hard time justifying.
I am ready to go back to Japanese cars – MBUSA just doesn’t get it nor do they provide as promised.

 

I feel for you in this situation.

We all know that the dealer will mark this car up to $40,000+ on the lot. I have had the same problem with a 6 mos old Infiniti FX 35........after seeing the depr. I made the decision to swallow my complaints and keep the car.......minor stuff but not worth a 7 grand hit the first year with 5000 miles on it.

My suggestions are-

1.Buy a $800. NAVMAN i-630 portable GPS, which does the same tasks as the in house unit. I had one for my non NAV car and it is great. Save the dealer BS and trade the car in later on when you don't get bit by the first two years depreciation. (GPSTORE.COM)

2. Pay the $14,000. and get what you want.
3. Go to the Lexus and never have a problem...........Lexus still for all the German cars I have owned has been the most trouble free and dealer thumbs up car .

Derek.

 

Why don't you send an email to steve (the audio guru from the forum), I don't remember his email, but if you search you will find it., maybe he can retrofit the Navi into your '03 for you.

From previous posts, my understanding was that the replacement was done more because the retrofit costs and liability outweighed just the cost of giving a replacement car to everyone, but it seems hard to believe that cost of retrofit would be more than $14K. So maybe Steve can do it for a small sum + parts and you ready to go? Just a thought...

 

Kelley Blue Book trade in value for a mint E320 with 22k miles is $32,900 and a private party sales value of $36,045. I think the major issue is the mileage. If your car had only 10k miles it would have a $36,600 trade in and a private party value of $39,745.

Jim

 

Someone mentioned the ICN630 earlier, but I think there are even better systems available for comparable prices. If you want to go the portable route, try the Garmin 2610 or the new Magellan. Both use touch screen interfaces and are very nice. I have the Garmin and find it to be quite nice, head and shoulders above the Mercedes integrated system. The value to the Mercedes system, to me and seemingly everyone else, is the integration - it is just nicer to have something built in.

FWIW, the Magellan model even uses a hard drive that has the entire country on it, whereas the Garmin uses compact flash memory cards which can store the whole country if you are willing to ante up $250 for the 2GB card.

The built in option is the Alpine. Again, a better system then Mercedes on every count except integration. Alpine can be made to be part of the visor if you find a good installer. Look for posts on how this has been done for others.

Good luck.

 

When using the Garmin, where do you place it and what kind of mounting do you use. The "bean bag" from what I can tell would look ugly on the dash and not knowing the exact size, I don't know where it could be put to see it easily and work the controls. How is the sound quality?

Thanks

 

WHATTTT????? only 33 000 for trade in and 36 000 for private party sale? are u kidding? its only one year!!!!!!! I was expecting above 41,000 at least.

 

Looking quickly on Edmunds its about that $39+ for trade and $40+ for private.

 

The Kelley Bluebook is extensively used by dealers to price used cars. http://www.kbb.com/ You may not agree with what the dealer offers but they do seem consistant with the Bluebook pricing. The dealer may mark up the price for a used car on his lot considerably above the 3rd party price and then negotiate if he has to.

I traded my '99 C280 last month and got very close to what the bluebook value was. The dealer sold the car in a couple of days and probably made a very nice profit. I could have sold it myself for $2-3000 more than the dealer offered but that would have been a hassle. The dealers count on people like me to trade in cars that are very clean so they don't have much work to do.

Jim

 

It does not look attractive on the dash - again, absence of something on the dash is exactly what makes the Mercedes unit desirable. That being said, the bean bag mount holds it quite well on the dash, with zero slipping or sliding. I tend to take my turns/curves quite hard too, but it stays put. For controls, the Garmin comes with a remote control. I find this to be quite nice to move the mouse and/or click OK and/or zoom in on the map or out. The touch screen is ultimately easier to use if you are entering a destination. The unit prevents you from using it if the car is moving more than 5+ miles, although I think you can turn this feature off.

Unit size is small, although given that it is only 2.5 feet from you, is relatively easy to see and even easier to zoom in on using remote (primary use for remote, and available when driving.

The sounds is good, with a speaker attached to the cig lighter adaptor. Easy to hear, pleasant female voice. You can have her talk in many languages if you so desire, including English (vs American ) if you want to add a touch of class to the audio

The maps & interface are easy to use. Overall, I am a very satisfied buyer, although my wife now insists she needs one. The one upside I saw to the Magellan was the birds eye view feature. This shows the 3-d landscape, a feature that was also available on the Hertz neverlost and the Magallen 750M (same unit I believe). This one also comes with a touch screen

Perhaps the one advantage of this item is in travel - being able to take it with you and put it on the dash of a rental is nice.

Overall, very nice item to have and generally available for $780 on the net, although retail is $1000. Big step up from the older Garmin units.

The Magellan with the hard drive runs as high as $1200 I think.

 

Thanks for the full review...sounds like I might be looking much closer at getting one of these. I will also check out the Magellan site.

Thanks again...

 

Glad to be of help. There is even a third unit available that also uses a touch screen, although I forget the maker. All of the current units were released within months of each other, so I doubt any were able to improve upon design issues of the competitors.

Good luck in the search for a unit. Try epinions.com for reviews as well as general searches on the net for additional info/reviews. At the time of my purchase, I had yet to see an article breaking out the differences in the newer units, but there may be something now.

 

I just retrofitted the DVD-NAV on my car last week through MB Amsterdam, I thought people said it wasn't possible-although my car is a late 2002 model so I guess it was prewired for the new NAV!Does anyone know if there is a way to make the DVD's play while on the move?Thanks!

 

I have been looking closely at the new Magellan Roadmate 700 with the 10GB HD. Has the entire US inside the unit...no downloads except for updates. Lowest price I have found is $1099 incl. shipping and no taxes. There is an excellent Demo on the following URL: http://www.autonav2000.com/default.htm

The best price is at www.mall24-7.com

It really looks pretty nice and they have a mounting adapter that attaches to the A/C vent which puts it in excellent viewing position.

Maybe Santa will find a way to find one for me...