1. Car Forklifted Onto Delivery Truck Because Auction Had No Key
2. Finally Sees Car and Damage In Person on Delivery Truck
3. Videos of S-Class Forklifted Off Delivery Truck And Slid Into Garage
4. Additional Rear-End Damage Photos
5. Cost Breakdown For Vehicle and Parts as of 3/12/16
6. Key Arrives! First Start Up.
7. First Test Drive, Warning Lights Abound
8. Fixed Electrical Issues(?), Replaced Battery and Alternator
9. New Woodgrain Steering Wheel Installed
I finally bought it Fellas!
Bottom line: the car sustained a severe rear hit, so it could never be made perfect again, no matter how much work is done to the panels. The original structural integrity is no longer intact, no matter how good the pull might have been. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.
What I really don't like is that he's going to try and hide the damage by finagling the registration to get a clean title. So any future owner might never know that they are buying a wrecked car. Sounds like a typical shady Russian tactic to me.






I partially bought this car for the mafiaesque look.
Last edited by mercedesbenzs55; May 12, 2016 at 10:27 AM.
The Best of Mercedes & AMG
The $1300 pull took about 80% of the visible damage out. Add the money for lamps and the rear bumper and for the PDR and it's still under $3k. Higher than $1k but way cheaper than the $10k I guessed originally from the pics in the yard.
So, in the end I would say Benz55 pulled it off. Was there an easier way to get an 07 for $15k? Probably, but look at the sheer entertainment value of the thread.
A constructive total loss is just a car thats value is less than the estimated repair costs. For example, that same hit on a 2013 with 30k miles would be repaired. Now I guarantee it wouldn't be repaired at MAACO, and they'd likely not try PDR on the quarters but the methodology...measure and pull the rear panel, replace the rear bumper and lamps, repair the quarters...would be the same.
I still think the whole enterprise was a folly but at the end of the day no real serious harm done to the car or the budget.
Here are a few pics of the car without the PDR. Having someone do the panels this wednesday.
As I picked up my OEM Trunk from the Portand Grayhound station, I noticed a passed out homeless man with nikes of a similar color to my adidas.
Last edited by mercedesbenzs55; May 13, 2016 at 12:30 AM.








