rich4368

Returned 2007 GL450 at lease end Nov 2009 and leased 39 months new 2010 GL350 with Premium 1 & Parktronic. It's about 20k miles consistently getting around 27mpg on my commutes. Was thinking about paying it off at $44k now or buy at lease end for $33.4k. Here is the caveat:

A month ago my GL was hit head on at a bank parking lot when it was parked. The Civic jumped the curb and hit the right bumper. The other party's insurance assumed full liability so my GL was repaired with all new Mercedes parts with lifetime warranty for all repairs. The replacements of Front bumper (over$1k), two headlights (have them swapped out my old PIAA bulbs), all the front grills, Turbo inter cooler radiator & many little things at the front. The damages actually didn't look as severe as the $6.2k indicated; damages were like broken hinges of headlights and a small puncture at intercooler.

Even though the front looked brand new now and I didn't notice any difference in driving (no noises or drop in mpg), I am worry about the potential long term effects of keeping it. Please advise.

eugkim

I wouldn't worry about it.

ddcha

I would buy it off at lease end, depending on what the market value is of your car. You have a call option on the car. So if it's worth more at lease-end, buy it. If it's worth less and used GL350 inventories are vast, then return it. Don't pay it off today and lose that option.

mschirmer

My take is that after a vehicle is in an accident, it's best to dump it - unless the damage was superficial and all damaged parts were bolt-on repairable - if there's metal or frame damage, regardless how well it was repaired, I'd let it go. In any case, now that it has a blemished CarFax - it will always trade at less than full retail - might be better to let the leasing company take the hit, not you.

If you do keep it - bundle the longest possible extended warranty into the deal.

mbmama

I would get rid of it or bundle it with longest extended warraties as mschirmer said

eugkim

I would check with the shop that did the repair. Not all of them report to carfax.

aeggroup

Shop does not report to CarFax. Insurance company reports it.

eugkim

I don't believe that's true. I was rear-ended, had it repaired through the other driver's Nationwide policy, and it wasn't on the Carfax. I was also looking at a used Q7 recently- the Carfax was clean, the Ebay autocheck showed an accident. I was told that dealers and shops can choose to report or not. If you've seen a lot of carfax reports, some have every service reported from dealers and service shops, others that have had dealer service have nothing.

DangermouseCLK

Why not pull both Carfax and autocheck reports yourself and see what future potential buyers will see?

eugkim

That's the best idea. Frankly, from the op's description of the accident, there shouldn't be a structural problem. If he has no long range plans for it, I might consider letting it go. If he plans on running it into the ground, I wouldn't worry about it. If there's a clean car fax, I'd keep it either way.

rich4368

Thank you all for your responses. I will wait a bit and pull the carfax and see. Not that I have decided to keep the car, just wondering. The car didn't have any structural damage and it drives perfect since I picked it up. If carfax shows an accident that will really be misleading because I saw all the pictures taken after bumper was removed. They replaced all the parts like headlights with cracked platic hinges and turbocooler radiator with minor dents of a size of a quarter.