adrien

well, these cars have a reputation for lasting. I would assume the residuals for a rental MB E or C are very good. Same way that allows lower lease payments, it also allows more affordable lease rates.

electricbro

I got my E350 with HUGE discount too. One thing I don't understand: why mercedes keep doing such "big discount" sales year after year? If there are excessive supply several years in a row, MB should already notice this situation and thus adjust its production accordingly. Looks like MB is doing this on purpose.

K-A

Wow, that's insane.... cheaper than a Cruze? WTF?

I don't see this as lightly as others do. Fact is M-B is and markets themselves as a Premium brand. Things like further exploiting something like their "badge of pride" (the Star), lighting up their Star, etc. show that they're really wanting to resort to upholding and pushing the "specialness" of the brand.

Using cars prevalently (i.e I'm not talking about very high priced Luxury Rental style) as rentals is historically damaging for a brand. When GM launched the '08 Chevy Malibu one of their selling points on the car was that "We won't be selling as many to Rental Fleets, this is a car we want people to know is something people choose to own for themselves". Many manufacturers when trying to move "up" the scales will scale back supply to Rental stores.

If they have to go too far with the Rental supply, it means they aren't meeting quotas by actual buyers. Same deal as when they Lease $60K E Classes for $399 a month. IMO it's damaging, and it isn't great for margins either (M-B's margins are tanking right now, by far the lowest of their competition and it may only get worse with all the sub-30-40K cars they're putting out). But they've gotta do what they've gotta do to keep cars moving.... it's just that to an enthusiast that doesn't make it "good".

When I was looking up Used E350 prices when I was looking to get out of my Lease, it was disheartening when there were floods W212's selling for extremely cheap (lower than KBB, which in turn will hurt resale value for ex-owner cars, which is another fundamental problem with a car too bought by Rental Company's), all by Hertz as ex-rentals. It reminded me of when I was shopping for Used Malibu's. It simply doesn't give an aura or designation of "Luxury" which is what Mercedes sells (and prices in).

But everyone has their lines. Call it vanity, etc., but I see it as paying a premium for a car and expecting it to both fundamentally and psychologically sell that. But "I'm the guy" who when I went to Europe the past couple of years my initial reaction to seeing my E-Class as a Taxi was "Cool! My car is a Taxi here, how funny" to literally being grossed out at the zillions of beat up ones being wheeled around like nothing-cars in every Country I went to, making it helplessly diminish how even I perceived my beloved car.

At the same time (the Taxi thing), it proves a fundamental engineering/durability achievement by the brand and I used it to confirm my notion that M-B builds cars that are meant to last forever. It's as if those guys in Europe do continuous R&D testing. However, I could never pay a premium for an E Class in Europe (or drive one) when everyone has one as a Taxi.... it simply isn't the same as in the States.

Agreed, and once again it's a bad look for the brand (a Premium/Luxury brand). They should just lower the MSRP if they have to slash 30% off of it just to move them. IMO it does long term damage to perception and also very much hurts resale value and continuity. I got an incredible deal on my E as well but I still wished M-B, or BMW, or any of these valued brands wouldn't make such jokes of their MSRP's.

BenzV12

Funny thing , I got am SMS and about Hertz and MB W204 C Class deals too.I have not checked in the prices yet because I don't need a rental at lol
I am not disturbed by seeing W212 E Classes are commonly used taxi in some modern countries in Europe.
Let's not forget E Class is a car that is used by variety of people from business man to taxi drivers and W212 never fails to fulfill this duty.
I mean there are some W212 E Class models that sets you back more than W221 S Class . (W212 E500 vs W221 S250 CDI ,S350 BLUETEC )
It also verifies that these cars are rock solid in mechanical wise considering these cars are driven everyday in congested city traffic to highway and not to mention 100+ kilometers every day use

electricbro

In Germany there are also many Volkswagen, Opel and even Mazda as taxi cab. Nothing related to mechanical solid or not, new cars won't break too much within warranty period. But the image hurts...

MBIAN

oh it must be miserable to let these matters be of any concern to you.

jeremyshaw

MB, BMW, Audi, Lexus, etc don't actively sell to rental fleets, nor do they have fleet sales channels in the US. Fleet managers purchase vehicles at the lowest negotiated price.

Among mainstream automakers, I believe only Honda refuses to actively sell to rental fleets (they are willing to sell to govt fleets, from experience). However, that only makes stocking Civics, CR-Vs, and Accords more expensive for rental fleet managers, not impossible.

Since enough people are willing to pay a premium to rent a perceived "luxury" car, the impetus to stock these vehicles in rental fleets is reinforced.

fintail

That's true. Rental Hondas are unicorns - but they do exist, especially in the National-Alamo fleet I think, where a base Accord will be classified "premium" (there are better choices if you reserve that category). I've only seen Accords and Civics as US rental cars, no others.

For the person complaining about "image", maybe one should adopt a European style view, where MB (and competition) are makers of everything, rather than some special luxury car (not exclusive anymore based on sales volumes). I have a nice E350, I call it my "diesel sedan with a vinyl interior" - it also has lots of toys and I think is nice looking, but I don't look at it as an exotic, rather just a premium car made on an assembly line with endless thousands of others.

hyperion667

interesting: never noticed about the honda's

K-A

Respect to Honda. I actually never knew that either. Especially in a time like this where they're losing lots of market share, any other company (M-B included as they've proven) would start selling huge amounts to Rental Fleets to appease shareholders.

That's cool, and shows some pride and diligence by the brand. Being a prevalent "Fleet Car" does horrors to a brands cachet, no way around that. Just ask GM who when they actually started making good cars again, stopped selling to Fleets to try and make consumers more willing to actually spend money on their cars (who wants to buy a "Rental Car"?).

ImInPA

Well, it does not bother me in the least that someone could rent an MB from a rental car company. Nice to think that someone would even consider paying $100/day to drive an E-Class. I like the idea that my E and S were designed and built to handle the rigors if taxi cab service. Just to really disappoint everyone, Es and Ss are also used in the executive car arena, with firms that rent "drivers and MBs" to shuttle the privileged around town. And, the horror continues even deeper for the Blutec owners. The very engine in their vehicles can be found in Sprinter, Freightliner, and Dodge (yes Dodge) vans. Ask, K-A, you won't find any BMW engines in the states powering real work vehicles.

K-A

No you won't indeed. There's a good and bad to that I guess (good being a tangible proven durability and value of those engines, and "bad" being a more emotional/psychological effect of a "less special" motor designation" if one cares about that kind of thing).

I will always admit to being emotion-driven in my car enthusiasm enough to the point where things like over-incentivizing models, over-use of Rental Fleet use, Commercial use, Taxi use, Limo use, etc. bug me to the point of bringing the "halo" down that a brand and its products have to me. Clearly yes I romanticize the days when I was a kid and there was some "exclusivity" and "aspiration" to get into these brands, and I guess that's been embedded in me at this point. I can't afford a New Ferrari or Rolls yet (not that I'd even want the latter if I could necessarily) so until then I'll keep romanticizing.

I admit I like the fact that my BMW motor isn't powering commercial or fleet vehicles, psychologically speaking, but will be the first to admit I had no problem considering buying out my E Classes and owning them after warranty, and am almost way too frightened to own my Bimmer out of warranty (a lot of that has to do with a higher performance Turbo engine with D/I VS a lower performance, simplistic N/A motor with no D/I). It's been great so far but yesterday after the Auto Start/Stop restarted the car, it stalled while I was in middle of an intersection. "Welcome to BMW" I felt, after hearing all the horror stories and getting a little taste myself already.

No doubt, M-B's excessive fleet use, be it by commercial, taxi, limo, etc. all over the world is a by product of (and due to) them being the highest rating Premium Manufacturer in reliability fields. As always, there's a give and take to everything.

ImInPA

To get back on this threads initial question: Losing the E550 is not likely to make much of an impact anywhere. It will likely drive up sales of the E400 TT and CLS. While it is true that BMW will offer V8 5 series, go to their site and option one up and the price very quickly exceeds CLS territory. With the current E550 accounting for only 5% of E sales, there is little to no effect going to happen.

aprevo15

I think you have this confused with the 550 thread.

ImInPA

lol...yes I have mixed my threads. But the same goes here too. A taxi is a taxi is a taxi is a taxi.

Arrie

I have seen MB taxis half of my life and it does not bother me one bit. The reasons for the huge number of MB taxis in Europe are basically two.

1. The diesel MB engine has a reputation that you cannot wear it out. It is one of the most reliable, if not the most reliable, diesel engine for a car use in the world. Taxis drive easily 100 000 miles / year, many of them almost double that and they just can't take a chance of being stranded on road because of the equipment failure.

2. Lot of European countries have very high taxes on cars. In some of them (probably in most of them) taxes are very low on "tools". Taxi is a tool for making your living so if you have a taxi business you can get a nice car very cheap to drive even outside the taxi use. These miles are limited though but how would the tax man really know what was real taxi work driving and what was not.

In Germany car taxes are low. There is no tax break for getting a nice German car, which used to be the cheapest to buy in Germany until they doubled the German car prices when they went from DM to Euro. This price increase was solely by the car manufacturers and has nothing to do with taxes. So, now you can see lots of other cheaper cars as taxis in Germany where it was almost impossible to see other than MB as a taxi.

MB being a rental car is very much ok with me too. Nothing nicer than getting an upgrade to a MB S350 when you pay for a Ford Fiesta...

electricbro

In many places of the world, including the states, cultures are different. The term "rental car" and "taxi" are never a compliment; on the contrary it leaves impression of "cheap" or "low end" in people's mind.

instantfob

I can't say the same for Crown Vic in the USA. It means "tough as nails"
Imagine swapping a new Coyote 5.0 in an used CVPI ... that's perfect for hooning.

TangoRed

It's not "excessive supply" that's causing this. Of course Mercedes is doing this on purpose, it drives sales. You want to know who else has ridiculous blow out sales? Why, their cross town competitor BMW. In this neck and neck yearly sales race, these incentives matter.

An E350 4-matic sedan actually has a lower projected depreciation rate than a comparable 535i xdrive. As far as the least deals go, they're par for the course in their sales race with BMW- they also have similarly aggressive lease deals.

MB's margins aren't tanking either, they've been the smallest out of the big 3 Germans for quite some time now. That hasn't changed much- Audi's surge to the top of the sales charts abroad (they're gunning at BMW right now) has shaken up the ecosystem.

I keep bringing up BMW solely because...this class has proven to be rather price sensitive and that's just the way things are right now. It's even worse a class below.

K-A

It depends on how the 5-Series is optioned. An M Sport package retains much better resale than the rest, while M-B's Sport package being the 99% free choice doesn't have that edge over the rest of the optioned E350's really. I recently read a report stating M-B's margins are dropping drastically with their cheaper cars and that Zetche's job may be in question if some of the new models launching (S, A, etc.) don't please shareholders i.e not moving their laggard stock.

Also, the W212's get blown out at MUCH lower prices than 535i's, I know as I've been in the market for these cars 3 times in the past few years. Nobody is getting 20% off on 535i's, maybe 10% if they're lucky (and even that is a rarity), while W212's get 20% off all day long with even more sometimes.

Therefore, you have 20% depreciation on W212's before they even leave the lot, so resale value ends up looking "not so bad" after a few years as most used prices reflect a discount off of the original MSRP. Hence how many threads are here with members stating that they're bummed out about paying prices for a 2010/2011/2012 E350 for not much lower than what another got a brand new one with aggressive discount. 5-Series' sell for much closer to MSRP so you'll see a more "natural" depreciation rate, i.e one that shows discount off of something closer to original MSRP, not the artificially low one we've been accustomed to by the E350's.

We all know there's one thing that sells resale and it isn't looks, performance, even brand.... it's reliability and then efficiency, and the E Class has the reliability edge over the 5 Series based on data reports, so no argument there that it should depreciate at a lower rate. However, I'm pointing out the unique aspects as to what has worked against the W212 in depreciation, i.e over-incentivized depreciation before the car even gets sold, a plethora of ex-rentals which I've never seen from a Premium Car in this class in such large numbers, and the fact that you don't have an equivalent "M Sport" package to uphold a better depreciation rate than "Jane Doe's E350 next door" per-se.

fintail

The F10 is in at least Avis fleet, and Sixt at least at one time had it in the US, too. Maybe not to the number of W212, but maybe that means the renter who is ripe to be picked off for a paid upgrade thinks a MB is more "special" and is more likely to pay.

Does anyone who supposedly gets 20% off not get it from a somewhat sketchy broker who is also their brother in law or poker buddy? Are such prices (not 10, but 20) actually had from dealers, on new current model year cars that aren't something like a yellow lux E350 with no P1? I'll admit I got 10%+ off my Bluetec without even trying very hard - I chalked it up to a relatively high option Bluetec just not being in demand.

K-A

It actually has more to do with selling to rental fleets, though of course fleets won't buy the cars if they aren't popular and wanted. F10's are sold in much smaller numbers to fleets all over the world (Taxis in Europe and Rentals in U.S for example), and it appears M-B has allowed the W212's to be acquired as the "go-to Luxury Rental Car". If you look at used F10's you won't see any ex-Rentals really, while in my area at least, the first two pages are full of E350's in the low to mid $30's (last time I checked and this was like 8 months ago) that are ex-Rentals.

20%+ discounts here have been posted very regularly. I had numerous offers like that when I was shopping just before NYE. My last W212 got a 15%+ discount with no sweat and that was in mid 2011 when incentives were even less and with no special promotions behind it.

fintail

F10s are HUGE rentals in Germany, especially with the leading carrier Sixt - if you book a premium or luxury rental, there's probably an 85% chance that's what you will get. An X category rental will also likely be a 6er or 7er. Not to mention the gobs of smaller BMW rentals there. It isn't as strong in the US, but they do exist, and the rental ideal so far doesn't seem to have had much of an impact on the model or brand. Average Joe has no idea such cars can be rented to begin with.

I know claims of certain discounts exist, but where the purchase was made is the key, and who knows about creative rounding. When matters, too, as we all know MB likes to blow things out in December. 15% vs 20% are big deals too, where most dealers will eventually fight for every dollar. But if one is buying from a broker, more believable.

K-A

Yeah In German I wouldn't be surprised. Almost every car in Germany seems to be an E Class Taxi so I'm sure BMW has to get in on fleet sales somewhere.

The 20+% discounts really are pretty easy if anyone's savvy enough on the W212's. Even my 2010 during its first model year, before the crazy incentives started coming in was gotten for over a 10% discount (my 2011 again a year later for over 15% off and that was before incentives got even larger). My F10 is said to be perhaps the best deal anyone on the BMW boards has seen, and it was barely 10% off, and that was the day before NYE when E350's were going for almost 25% discounts in some cases (I was offered well over 20% off on several E's).

CEB

The bottom line is that in Europe, BMW, Audi and MB are either consumer cars (316/318/1 series, A2/A3, A/B/C180) while virtually everything else is a company car, with larger engined C's and smaller engined E's being for middle management while upper management gets the "big" E or an S (or the BMW/Audi equivalent). Taxis are mostly B's and E's with a sprinkling of Opel and Ford minivans.