S5504maticowner

I have a question for current S Class owners. What are the risks, if any from purchasing a pre-owned S550 from a non-mb dealer? What do you loose out on?

Will you get charged higher prices if you want to perform a service A,B or C at an MB dealer if the vehicle wasn't bought there? I am curious about what perks you miss out on and are they big enough to make you reconsider buying from a non-mb dealer?

bigben320e

You will miss nothing but perhaps a much lower price paid for the car. Make sure to get the car inspected, title clear, CarFax, Autochek, and all of that. Even if you buy from a dealer you can get a problematic car. Plenty of posts on the forum about that.

In my experiences buying from a non-MB dealer, the cars were fine, they were inspected by the nearest MB dealer and the reports were given to me in hand from the SM's at the MB dealers.

Ahmedito

What I think is: buying from non-MB dealer is fine as long as the warranty is affective + don't forget checking and inspecting of course.

jemfrap

my experience has been good. As said before check the warranty.

RoundTheBenz

+1

This is the second MB I've bought on ebay and while it had a couple of issues, the warranty makes it a much easier purchase. I was able to get everything I wanted plus some and saved close to 15K over a dealer CPO.

I'm happy.

07 S550 P1/P2 Sport

jprescott

I agree with all comments above and would add that you may want to stick with a car that has at least 1 year left on warranty. This allows you to live and drive with it and work out the quirks. There are several items that get too expensive to deal with out of original warranty. 2008 wouild be a good bet but check the warranty with an MB dealer since a 2008 may have had a sale date in 2007

egauster

My own thought would be to buy from a place that can service and not a long distance away, MB Dealer or not. I bought a CPO from a dealer and they actually found a few items over the next couple months (motor mount leak, telematic update, replaced rear armrest latch that broke, etc) that they handled for free. I do like the dealer mercedes loaner cars and shuttle service (depending on area) and I got a great deal financing through MB Credit, with very little extra paperwork and steps, had I gone through my bank. Also, if I had bought from out of state, I would have sales tax issues to deal with, etc. This way it was handled all in one transaction. BUT----

I do routine maintenence through an independent near my office to save a little expense. That way if there is a warranty item, it goes to the dealer and if it falls in a "grey area" they can be sometimes pushed to pay because I bought it there... The regular service interval stuff goes to the indie...

I would be cautious of buying from someone a great distance away and shipping the car to you, or one of those "lots" that clearly dont service. That lot might be gone in two months, when you discover a big hidden problem.

Most guys wont be out to cheat you (although there are some bad apples) and if they are even semi established and have service experience they will want to make things right...

At the end of the day, I got a CPO at a dealer, financed through MB Credit for not too much more then other places (I was shocked to see a similar car on ebay asking for more, but most were a thousand or two less). Not worth the trouble to me for that little difference.