thefisch

That's much more reasonable then. I've only used ebay for random stuff.

kajtek1

Well, ebay is tricky part.
Even at copart, when you win the auction nobody can force you to pay. You might loose your deposit thought.
On ebay you don't have to put deposit, but you will be registered as "non-paying bidder".
Point is that everything will sell on ebay and only concern is price.
All other places will generate lot of tire kickers, so it is your choice what works for you.

thefisch

Thanks I get it now. Tirekickers are the worst part of selling a car. But at my price point I expect I will get pickier buyers or just low bidders.

Does the seller get labeled or registered if they back out of sale due to price?

kajtek1

ebay keeps changing the rules on monthly bases, but generally if you are selling the car, you can cancel the listing 24 hr before it ends with no restrictions.
Funny how ebay charges.
You can make auction listing, with chosen starting price and no listing fee, but if you do reserve, that is going to cost you.
Once you sell, you pay the $1xx commission, what is only fair.
Point is that if you only consider selling and don't want to get rid of the car, make a listing with min price and see how it goes. If you don't get any bid, 2-3 days before auction end you can lower the price and even it is only $1, all the watchers will get notifications about lower prices.
As much as I don't like to use brainwashing tactics, that can be used.

KEY08

I would just do an Autotrader ad. In your price range it’s possible to reach a cash buyer. They are out there for low cost desirable cars. You absolutely will get tire kickers and calls from other listing services. It’s just part of selling. I sold my 2010 E550 4M within a week on autotrader to a private party. He took a test drive for about an hour and came back the next day with a cashiers check. I asked lots of questions and verified he was legit. An easy sale, all things considered.

thefisch

Close to getting a deal together for my car this week. Hard to believe that after 5 years and over 3,000 posts I might be moving on.

Arrie

Moving to where?

jonUF02

Yes, I'd be interested in what you think is a good replacement for E550. I've contemplated things like the Audi S7 or BMW 650i 4-door, but I just don't trust those brands like I've come to trust MB quality. I can't bring myself to gamble +10K expense to buy one of those over the car I know and love. My next car may well be the last CLS550 year made. I would love to buy a S550 coupe, but I'll have to wait until my kid is old enough to strap in the back seat on their own. Definitely NOT interested in the crazy complexity of the new E53 which still does not have the same power as the 550. Anything less than the power I have now would be a disappointment, so I'm just keeping it a while.

KEY08

The depreciation curve hits at around 3 years for almost all of the Mercedes lineup, where you can get a 50% discount on a low-mid mileage vehicle. Unlike a lot of brands MB still has a 4 year base warranty, so you buy a 3 year old car under CPO which should give you 2 years of warranty to figure out if you bought a good car. You can then extend the CPO for an additional 2 years if you don't like driving these cars out of warranty. I am looking at a 2015 ML400 4M for my wife that is a CPO with warranty left and it is priced at $31,000. The list was $73,000. As high-priced as these cars are, the depreciation works to our advantage in a big way. I can't buy a Subaru, Toyota, Honda, comparable SUV for what I can get the Mercedes for.

thefisch

I'm going with the hand me down plan and getting a Honda Accord that I can pass off to one of my kids in a few years. If that works well, then my next car after that would be a future hand me down for the younger kid. Eventually I will get back to me and who knows - maybe I will go electric if that is more mainstream by then. This will be my third Accord so it's kind of like going home. Will miss the V8 and seat comfort, but I will survive.

KEY08

We have an Odyssey van and my daughter has her Honda Fit. You cannot go wrong with the Honda brand. They are an excellent choice and the most reliable vehicles I have ever owned. Yes, you will be just fine, Fisch. Stop in from time to time and let us know how you are doing. Losing good contributors of this site is hard. Best of luck to you and your family!

thefisch

Thanks Keith. Gosh I miss out Odyssey but our current Pilot has served the family well too. I will stay subscribed for sure to keep up on the E class.

raja777m

BTW, does your state asks for property tax to be paid on the car every year?
NC asks for 3% and they valued my car at 30k (2014 with 69k on it with ELW until 2020 - DMV doesn't care about ELW though). - paying 500$ per annum including 36$ customized license plate is not a joke..!

NJ asks for 7% on the brand new car and don't ask to pay property on used cars.
GA asks for 8% at the time or registration, even if it is a used car (to my knowledge).

Now that I moved to NJ temporarily and the inspection and registration is for 2 years, I'm planning to leave it as it is as long as I relocate to somewhere in east coast.

thefisch

So I traded in the car last Friday. Made sure to have a few launches on my drive over to appreciate the beast that my E550 was. I've got a few accessories leftover that I will offer up on the forum after I get a chance to get organized.

Nope, Florida is not an ad valorem state. So you pay the same to register a $1k car as a $100k car. There is sales tax of course.

Mud

My last car was an 08 Accord V6. Rock solid - I only sold it because I was ready for a change and I got good pricing on it and my MB.
Thanks for all of your help along the way here and best wishes to you!

Arrie

So what amount did you let it go for?

My local MB dealer sales manager just last week sent me a letter signed by hand saying that he want to buy my car and they will pay 10% more than kbb values the car at. This time it was not to trade it in, just to buy my car. I have got two letters before from them asking me to trade my car in against a new car but this time they just want to buy it.

My car kbb value is $8800. Car is in very good condition with all options I could ever wish from a car. It has 162400 miles on the clock and I just replaced the starter on it for another 162400 miles to go.

Why would I let this awesome car go for $9700? If someone came to offer $18000 I might consider but anything less I won't even turn my ear to. I will rather replace transmission and even engine (or have it rebuilt) than give it away for nothing.

DFWdude

Just playing Devil's advocate here... At some point the value of any car will fall off the table. I have a friend who (years ago) took his early production, well kept, W202 190E to Carmax. Carmax declined to even offer a buying quote, because the car had more than 100,000 miles on the odo (just 117,000 in truth). So, beyond a certain model year and mileage, any car becomes unappealing for a subsequent dealer to sell, let alone buy from you.

My 2001 W203 C320 (all options) is now 18 years old, and lightly used, with just over 110,000 miles (avg 6,100 miles a year). However, ANY repair ($1000+) I make on the car is now more than the trade-in value of the car. I doubt that any dealer other than "Sam's Used Cars" with <25 cars on his city corner lot will take it.

I seriously doubt anyone will offer me twice what the car is worth.

I made the conscious decision to keep the car this long, for what can only be described as sentimental reasons. It is worth more to me than what I can sell it for. But that is not a good economic reason to keep it.. I suppose I could sell it privately to someone who wants a cassette player and 6-Disc CD changer in the glovebox. Both still work... YMMV.

thefisch

Seems like you're not ready to move on, but I was. Didn't want to face repairs after the warranty expired plus the tires were down to 4/32-3/32 so it was time to replace them. And plugs and ATF were going to be due in a year. And honestly after an extended test drive in the Accord, I was looking forward to it more than I expected coming from MB.

As far as value for the car, I took a hit on the trade at about $12.1k. Which was better than the $10k from Carmax or $9k another dealer offered but still not great. Didn't help me that a local dealer had the same year E550 with 20k less miles selling in the area for $15.7k. Luxury trim with 17inch wheels, faded wood and damage reported on Carfax (more on that later) didn't help interest in selling it privately for $13-14k. So I took the loss on the trade in just to move on and not deal with the long, drawn out sales process. The dealer now has my car listed for $15.4k here. Gosh they missed so many details on the listing, it's not funny.

On the Carfax, when I pulled it for sale purposes, the report showed damage to rear of car back in July 2013 which was 9 months before I bought it. I was shocked as I got a Carfax before purchase and it showed no damage. Looking closely at the report on the Carfax, it showed that they didn't start reporting that incident until July 2014, 3 months after I got my car. So much for relying on a Carfax to be accurate and timely. From what I can tell, they might be referring to a scratch on the trunk lid that was touched up but doesn't matter how minor - folks don't like a bad Carfax.

Some good news though - Carmax is actually refunding me a little more than 10% of the Maxcare warranty cost because there were still time and miles left before 100k. Doesn't matter that they spent way more than that in repairs. So that's another $340 in my pocket so my net is closer to $12.5k.

Arrie

Well,

I'm ready to move on but it does not mean I will give this car away for "nothing". I have taken very good care of it and I did not do this to give it for someone else underprized. My moving on is to go S-class when time is right. That car is THE CAR compared to E-class and most vehicles that roll on the roads. You only know this if you rode in or drove one. The difference is amazing compared to E-class.

I probably end up having both E and S-class on my drive-way.

But thanks for your posts in this forum and good luck with the Honda. It is a very good quality car.

kajtek1

We all have sentiments to our drives, but market value is what it is.
I ended up with 3 cars with need for 1. so pristine 2008 sedan went for $3500 to fellow forum member. It is a diesel with all the bad wrap about it, but how many cars for this price still deliver good performance with 30 mpg?
Bottom line, we can bless our drives when using them, but market value has its own laws.

jonUF02

It seems "tire kickers" are no longer a thing. Now everyone just text messages you some low ball offer before they even see the car to kick said tires. Start about 20-25% above what you actually want because people are just going to throw blind bids at you, chopping at the knees of your asking price.

cetialpha5

I'm in sales so those "tire kickers" are always out there. I just ignore those low ball offers because whenever I sell anything, I always look at the market, figure out what it's worth, then discount it slightly to account for seller bias. Then I can tell those tire kickers that I'll think about it, but in the mean time, it usually sells right away and I'm not sitting on it for weeks on end.

You're really not fooling anyone by pricing it high, you just open the door to the tire kickers because they know you'll never get your asking price.

jonUF02

I've sold a few cars recently and a couple of jet skis in the past few weeks. I would post a picture of the book value just to show that I'm right in line with the book, but still get endless offers of $4000-4500 on skis with book value of $5100-5800. I advertised at the top end of $5800 with intention to drop $500 or so, but people don't care, they just try to knock off a huge chunk of what you're asking. I feel like if I started at $6500-7000 I would have a blind text message offer the next day of $5000, which is what I wanted. I will probably try this strategy next time. I guess my overall point was that nobody even shows up to "kick the tires" they just make blind money offers seeing if you'll take a bunch less than the price your'e asking, even if it's a very reasonable price. You have to deal with all of those before you get to a level-headed buyer who realizes the price is within boundary and actually shows up to negotiate if they like it when they see it. It seems all negotiation skills have gone out the window, now it's just random texts "what's the lowest you'll sell if for?" I try to educate them on the process of negotiation, tell them I'm asking X which is in line with book values, if you would like to see it and make an offer then I may consider a lesser offer.

kajtek1

I stole an idea from forum member (Al) in car advertising, but that can be used on different stuff as well.
"No offer consider unless you have seen the car".
Beware that regardless craigslist mail forwarding - the scammers are using all kind of tricks to get your direct email.