GregTR

I ordered a fully loaded E-wagon with an MSRP of $74,700 and I was curious how crazy I am in the world of crazies who spend this kind of money on a car. Apparently I'm pretty crazy.

I was bored last night so I looked on autotrader.com for all new E-class that were offered for sale by dealers and decided to chart their MSRP distribution by volume.

Currently there are over 11,000 E-class vehicles for sale which indicates about 2 months of inventory supply.

First I plotted all E-class vehicles (blue line) then I concentrated on strictly the E350 sedans (76% of all sales, red line) and finally split the E350 into AWD (green line) and RWD (purple line) (60% RWD, 40% AWD).

The average prices:
E-class: $61,500
E350 Sedan: $60,600
E350 RWD: $59,700
E350 AWD: $62,000

The things I found interesting were:

1) 40% of E350s are sold with 4matic. I thought the number would be much lower

2) You can see a spike at the $62,000 price point even for the RWD model in the chart, I think it can be because of two reasons. Either dealers incorrectly mark their inventory on autotrader and these cars are actually 4matic not RWD which would mean that 4matic sales percentage is actually even higher than 40%. The other explanation can be that people trade 4matic for other options instead but still willing to pay a higher price. I find the second explanation rather dubious as the average sales price difference between the AWD and RWD is pretty close to the price of the 4matic option indicating that people option out their cars the same regardless of the 4matic.

3) There aren't a lot of W212s past the $67,000 mark. If you spent more than this, you're definitely an outlier.

E Classy

nice work - i always appreciate a good graph

looks like your wagon falls into the e550 inventory area. did you negotiate the price yet? also, which color and trim did you get?

GregTR

Paying $750 over invoice which is roughly 5% off MSRP when you add regional advertising and port prep fees to the Edmunds invoice. That is as low as it gets as MBUSA does no rebates on wagons, they simply don't have to. So while you can get $5k off a sedan right now the wagon sits all pretty with no discount. My only hope is an additional $1k conquest cash if that kicks in by the end of November. Estimated delivery is 11/25 +/- one week. I hope it's close to the end of November so if November has no special rebate/trunk cash December might.

I got Indigo Blue with Porcelain/Black, black ash wood and black headliner, 18" AMG wheels and sport trim.
Options were:
- Heated Steering Wheel
- 115V plug
- Parktronic with surround camera
- Driver Asist package
- P01 package
- Leather interior
- Ventilated seats
- Active multicontour driver seat
- Lighting package
- Keyless-GO with trunk open
- Rear seat entertainment

E Classy

yeah, makes sense that they don't have to rebate the wagon. it's the only one of its kind here.

my original order was indigo blue with porcelain leather. have you seen pics or an in-person example of the indigo blue? my advice would be to carefully look it over as it has a purple tinge to it in certain light. it will definitely be unique on top of an already unique wagon, but sometimes color goes the wrong way, so to speak. i changed my order to palladium silver.

GregTR

I have been looking at every photo that I could find of the color indigo blue and as you said some look purple. I'm a TCU alumn so purple is not a problem .

But I think the car will actually be blue, cameras notoriously have an issue with purple/blue hues. I think these photos probably show the best what the color looks like if I had to guess:





I was going to get lunar blue but after I saw it on a car at the dealer I found it too dark. My E90 is Montego Blue which your E91 also seems to be unless yours is a Le Mans which is an M Sport only color. The Montego was a bit more purple than Le Mans so as you can see I love blue and doesn't have that much of a problem with purple.

I did not want a black/grey/silver/white car. I really wanted a red one but they are delayed indefinitely.

E Classy

the red is very tasty, but it's annoying they have delayed it. mine was le mans blue - loved that color.

good luck with the rebates, hopefully the holiday season will bring at least a grand or two off!

BenzV12

Hey, you ain't crazy at all , you were if you could buy something that is less comfortable , less safer , tackier ,tattier model ,I don't wanna give out brand name here to hurt anyone's feelings here
Well, color wise I like that color and it looks nicer than Jaguar XF's indigo that I have seen a couple of .
Option wise , it would be kinda crazy to spend a lot on the options that you would never need to use but retrofitting is very hard to use on some accessories and what's worse may be not cost effective therefore a fully loaded W212 is a better choice than "debarked" E Class
Rant over lol

USCGTO

Don't worry, you're not crazy. You're just new.

75k, huh?

See that section up top? Yeah, the one with AMG sedans / coupes / convertibles / suvs.

99% of those cars start above 75k.
A whole lot of those cars start above 100k.


SL class - Starts at 100k - gioes to 225k
CL class - Starts at 100k - gioes to 225k
S class - Starts at 95k - gioes to 225k
G Class - starts at 100k plus
GL - typically options out close to 70k and goes all the way way beyond 120k

ML / E/ C / GL start close to 50k but the V8 versions climb high into 70s with decent options.


So, trust me on this, you're not crazy, to order a 75k car.
My fully loaded "C class" was $82k.

hyperion667

very interesting work man, thanx for sharing these numbers.....

my 550 was a cu nt hair under 70 back in Oct or 2010