nauticalx

Folks-

Thinking of buying a facelift (2010-2012) S550. With the redesign dropping in 2013 as a 2014 model (I believe), I am wondering if I should wait or buy now. I would wait if the outgoing models will nosedive in pricing. My theory is that S-Class is a "loaded" person's vehicle and that said people will not be caught in an outdated model. Therefore, the older models will flood the dealers as trade-ins and suffer steep declines in value. This may even occur upon to a lesser extent upon the announcement of the new model and much more once they hit dealers.

Question- Anyone know from history whether this was true with the last redesign and have any advice on how to buy smart, so-to-speak?

Thanks!

xxGenericSNxx

Yes it will drop in value and if you really want a "good deal" just wait until a few months after the new model debuts.That's typically when you see the biggest drop in the shortest amount of time. For this reason, my friends sell their W221 model S Class about a year before the new one comes out.

jprescott

To buy a 2013 now is a bad idea for several reasons. The obvious is that your car will be obsolete and dated the day they unveil the new body style (any day now). In addition , yes the residual will tank which is why you will get a great deal on the present body, especially when the new ones arrive. As you know many of us go crazy when a face lift or a new body style is released. BTW, by all reports the new S is ready for a launch sooner than later. Would guess by Feb or March latest

xxGenericSNxx

From my understanding the US it'll launch late summer/ early fall as a 2014 model right? So the best time to buy your 2010-2012 S Class without waiting too long is around 9-11 months from now.

dbtk

Hope to see the new S-class in person at the LA Auto Show next week.

kalortpor

Oh yes, I would definitely not get anything newer than 2010 until after the W222 comes out....In fact, if you have to have W221 now, maybe go for 2009 and older, they will lose less of their relative value as they have already declined more.

I also wouldn't get a W222 until it has been out at least a year, unless I wanted to be an early adopter, in which case sooner the better, but it seems the people that do that usually trade it in only a couple years later (any original owners of Andorite Gray Launch Edition W221s here? I figured :P)

One thing I'd wager though, we won't see the hit on the W221 that the W220 took when the W221 came out. Not just because of the reliability issues, but it seems Mercedes does pairs of S-class where the next one is more of an incremental revision than a complete do-over, like W116/W126, then W140/W220, and W221/W222. W222 retains much W221 resemblance in shape, and we can probably expect a W223 to look much different than either of those cars.

nauticalx

Makes sense. What's the reason the early adopters trade in after a couple years? Was the Andorite Grey Launch Edition an unreliable vehicle?

Quadcammer

Bull.

One, after 2003, the reliability on 220s is quite good. 2005/2006s, even more so.

You think a 140 to 220 is an incremental change? Really?

They shaved what, 400lbs off of the car, used a different engine family, different electronics technology, air suspension/abc, etc etc.

The 221 is an incrementally different 220.

Fraser

I haven't laughed this hard in ages!

In the last 20yrs or so I don't think there's been as bigger change from incumbent to successor than was seen with the W140 -> W220. The W140 is almost just a bigger E Class in terms of technology!

Quadcammer

no kidding right.

140 and 220 are different cars in design, and principle. The 220 and 221, not so much

MBNUT1

I was thinking the same when I saw that post.

kalortpor

Agreed, and my father's 06 S500 has been bulletproof (including ABC) with 140,000 miles on the clock so far, but once those issues came about, the damage was already done and it gave a reputation that was hard to shake even after they got their act together, hence the poorer resale value. The skepticism, undeserved or not, continued for some years even into W221's tenure, especially from the mainstream press. It makes me angry when I still hear people make comments like "Oh, your car must spend a lot of time in the shop. Should've bought a Hyundai."

I should have explicitly restricted my comments to design of body style only even though I suspect there will still be some disagreement, but it really looks to me that Mercedes evolves the body style for one cycle, then makes a more drastic change. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

W140 body style was much different than W126 (can't we at least agree on that?), which itself evolved from W116 design and it shows. W220 may also be a new design, but not as radical a departure as W140, once again, IMO. Squint your eyes, round it off and make it smaller, and you're probably not too far off from what the W220 ended up looking like.

Now if you ask me, they really changed the look and proportions with W221. How many people were completely turned off by its bold appearance when it first came out? A lot more than when W220 came out, that's for sure (actually, W140 also got an unfair reputation, in its case for being too excessive and bloated, and the less-is-more philosophy was mostly welcomed at W220 release, though W140 in its time had been one of the most solid and striking cars ever built. Those same critics, in hindsight, then ended up deriding the W220 as too conservative upon the W221's release!). And for those who did criticize W220 at its own release, it was never guilty of alienating stuffy traditionalists for being too radical, but for being underwhelming compared to the opulence and stature of the outgoing W140. They didn't consider it "different" enough, and if so, for the wrong reasons. The design philosophy kept the "look-at-me!" factor down, and despite still being one of the nicest looking cars on the road at the time, it just didn't stand out as the W140 did in the world of econoboxes that was 1992. Yet like that car once did, the W221 still commands much attention even 6+ years later, its reputation for being reliable has held, and the values reflect that.

Plus, all we've seen of the W222 so far looks like a W221 with CLS lights and side sculpts, so much so that it received criticism for it on this board and elsewhere (I will reserve judgment until we see it for real). So I see some semblance of a pattern here.

I only mention this observation about looks since the average S-class buyer is not the typical forum member here, and more of them than we should be proud to admit will buy the shiny, new-kid-on-the-block body style only because they have to have the latest and greatest, actual appreciation of its merits be damned, and the more unique and dissimilar to what's already on the road, the better.

Even if you disagree with me, I hardly think that's deserving of a line that you "haven't laughed this hard in ages" (unless it's good-natured ribbing, but it's hard to tell), but I think there's far more outlandish things that could be said that gets a line like that (like an ostensibly well-educated friend once asking us about G.W. Bush in 2008, "Oh, wait, so which party is he then? Republicans right?)

xxGenericSNxx

I will respectfully disagree with your opinion. IMO the W140 is closer in appearance to the W126 and W116 before that than the W220.

Don't worry though, we're all still friends!

kalortpor

I can see that if you consider W140 and before more "squarish", and W220 and beyond more aerodynamic and sculpted....But boxy isn't really a fitting term either, Mercedes never went to the angular extreme that just about everyone else did in the 80s, they retained their curves and aged well...like Sophia Loren!

I don't know what it was about the W140, maybe its trim detail, hulking look or the tremendous C-pillars, but compared to all the other cars that had been looking like each other, like rectangles on wheels for more than a decade, it really was the first to say to me, "Wow, so these are what cars of the future are going to look like, and they're here!" It was futuristic and the first break from the James Bond-sy look of Mercedes past to me. Still regal, but in a different way. It's hard to explain....just less "classic", more "modern". The W126 still evoked the sense of heads of states being driven around in 600s from the 1960s. Not really a bad thing!

Fraser

Ah, well I didn't realise that. Even so I think the W220 and W221 are certainly a closer match than the W140 and W220. The W221 looks like someone has opened a W220 on Photoshop and "smudged" some bits about. I still have people think my W220 is a one of two year old car. To me the 220 was revolution, the 221 evolution.

At the time the W220 came out I was in the UK and I remember thinking it was a rather radical departure from the diplomatic land yachts of the W140 era.

Quadcammer

sorry to say, but I still disagree (about quite a few things, but I'll leave it to this post).

The w140 is about as boxy as it gets