Question About Purchasing a Lease Return
 

Hi there,

I'm looking at purchasing a CLA45 from a used car dealership. I was wondering if you guys could tell me why Mercedes would pass up on the vehicle and sell it to a used car lot. It's a lease return, highly optioned with no accidents and 52,000km.

I called Mercedes and they said that the maintenance is up to date and it requires a Service A in a couple months, but won't divulge any other details due to their policy. They also don't do PPI for vehicles any longer. When I test drove it, it also would not let me race start, so I believe it has been taken for a few joy rides recently, but the dealer denies that.

So I'm just wondering what the reason is that Mercedes would pass up a vehicle like this.. Is it too old for them to make it a Certified Pre-Owned? Or is there another reason they would pass up on it?

Thanks in advance!

Lease returns go to auction and are sold to the highest bidder. Sometimes its a sketchy used car lot that wants to have some higher end cars in their inventory. I work at a dealer, and we very rarely buy a lease turn in directly because the purchase option is more than we can get one at auction. I wouldn't spend more than 7 seconds worrying about this one.