https://www.t-online.de/mobilitaet/a...autobauer.html

 

Im on my iPad, and cant read the link. Looks to be in German…..

 

Mercedes abolishes fixed pricesPrice revolution at Mercedes: From this Wednesday, customers will no longer find out what their car really costs. What does that mean? And what does it achieve?

End of price tags at Mercedes: From Wednesday, the luxury brand will no longer tell its customers how much a car really costs. The prices of individual extras will also be completely unclear in future. Mercedes promises its customers more comfort. But the real intention may be something else. Here you can find out everything you need to know.

What changes?

The previously usual fixed list prices for Mercedes vehicles are a thing of the past. Instead, prices can fluctuate depending on the market situation - similar to share prices on the stock exchange. From now on, on the Mercedes websites, in the online shop and in the configurator, you will only see the actual selling price of a car. How this price is arrived at remains unclear. In addition, Mercedes will in future focus on the monthly leasing rate and no longer on the total price of the vehicle.

Advantages according to Mercedes

The manufacturer promises customers several advantages through this step: for example, more flexible pricing that can adapt more quickly to market conditions. Online purchases should also be easier, as customers can configure their leasing rates individually. Mercedes claims that this will make buying a car more convenient.

Disadvantages for customers

In the future, there will be less price transparency at Mercedes. Without fixed list prices, it will be more difficult to compare offers and thus estimate the price of a model. It will remain completely unclear to customers whether the stated price of a car may be significantly higher than its value. Inexperienced buyers in particular could be disadvantaged because they are less able to estimate market prices.

Instead of speaking to a dealer, customers only deal with Mercedes online. Negotiations are no longer possible. And there are no discounts either.

What does this mean for you as a buyer?

As a Mercedes buyer, you will have to spend more time looking at the market in the future to identify good deals. It can be useful to monitor prices over a longer period of time before deciding to buy. This requires more time and attention in the buying process. Mercedes claims to make buying a car more convenient. It will probably become one thing above all else: more expensive again.

 

Sounds like a bunch of bull to me. If it’s gonna be Market driven in the future, then everyone gonna order Benz’s in areas with lower cost of living…….lol

 

It's all over the german media so we'll see

 

What a joke. This is Uber surge pricing. Dealers do markups as they see fit now, but now it seems the manufacturer will also mark things up depending on certain circumstances. So the MSRP will never be static. Greed.

 

Thats not going to work in America, at least.

 

Pretty sure this is Germany only. As opposed to most of the USA, many dealerships in Germany are owned by the manufacturers themselves and it has already been in the news that Mercedes is looking to sell theirs and move to a direct sales model similar to Tesla. This likely won't fly in the USA as most dealerships are independently owned, so they can't just cut them out of the equation. We essentially already have dynamic pricing with ADMs and discounts, except it's at the dealer level. This likely won't change here.

 

Glad it is not going to affect North America, I mean since I saw MB Australia started having the agency model half a year or more ago, I wouldn't had surprised about MB coming up with stuff like this now, but thankfully North America might just not be affected by this as other forum members mentioned. Felt bad for those who live in home of MB, Germany and if it affects Europe, felt bad for those as well.

 

My guess is there will be more mark-ups than down. Between corporate greedflation and corporate shrinkflation I'm getting fed up with all this greed. Greed is NOT good. And so many wonder why there's so much inflation.
BTW, my good friend who works for Lamborghini whose store was presold two years out are getting lots of cancellations of late...feel bad for him, but I'm glad people are finally saying NO!

 

By law a window sticker has to be on a new car that states MSRP for base car and options.

So what they change the sticker out every day?

 

That’s a good question and assuming this pricing model does come here, the dealers will essentially have to. If Mercedes stops announcing official MSRP for new vehicle models then it is a reality.

 

I don't get it so they bank on people just simply leasing and only talking about lease payments and not the actual price of the vehicle.

What about those of us who buy their vehicles outright? Or does MB assume these vehicles coming out are all disposable and customers will never want to own one for various reasons including the downward trend of reliability of MB products or cost cutting?

Does this mean or foreshadow that MB quality will just get worse and I am wishful thinking they actually will build something that is good again like back in the days and it is a pipe dream to expect less cost cutting but instead this is foreshadowing further cost cutting?

If this is true, that is definitely not a future I look forward to wIth MB as a MB fan.

MB had to do damage control after coming up with W206 C 63 S E Performance with the improvements already seen on the W214 and C236. Are they backtracking... again?
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I don't think MB even knows, as they've demonstrated recently. I haven't seen an automaker in such disarray. Changing course every week it seems like.

 

Most of these cars get leased and the rest is financed as it is already. Most people shop monthly payment, because they don't have the money in the bank to buy it outright or spend more a month than they take in, so it's long been the tactic of sales departments to hide the cost of the car and their profit behind creative finance plans that yield a monthly payment the customer can afford. People are signing 72+ months finance deals these days. One of the first questions any SA asks is are you gonna lease or finance and how much are you looking to spend a month? If you say you pay cash, they stumble and likely divert their attention towards more profitable customers, so never answer these questions upfront.

I continue to think that this is Germany only, at least for now, and as far as Germany is concerned there's another trait. Most of these cars are company cars over there. Many jobs in Germany come with a car. You get a monthly allowance, so everybody is trying to get as much car as possible and not exceed the allowance. MB is right, this new pricing model makes it less stressful for these customers to shop for their company car, as they can just walk into the dealership and see how much car they can get for their monthly allowance w/o first having to figure out the financing deal.

BTW, this is also why you see so many luxury cars in Germany w/o badges from the factory. They usually have tiny diesel engines, because that's all they could afford. They wanna be seen in an E or S Class, but when you look under the hood it's a tiny engine that we don't even get in North America. These days many are actually hybrids, because the company gets huge tax credits if the employees buy hybrid company cars, so as an employee you get a higher allowance if you buy a hybrid and it's well known that most of the plug-in hybrids in Germany are never plugged in. They are just driven for tax reasons.

 

nein sprechen zie deutsch.

 

Germany has EV station on every corner it seams and they still don't like EVs.
in USA, per washington post, 'Biden’s $7.5 billion investment in EV charging has only produced 7 stations in two years'

And this is by the way how you get high inflation, not due to corporate greed as an economic genius above had told us. There is nothing the corporations hate more than inflation as they cannot predict costs of materials, labor and products. Not having that visibility is detrimental to the stock prices which is corporate raison d'etre.

 

If I were to ever even think about a replacement for my '18 S 560 (33,000 m) which at my age I don't think will happen, it will be a lease, not a purchase.

 

One thing is really interesting though, new E class AMG on the german website has this pricing breakdown, and if I am not mistaken, 110k car goes for 1,130 per month.

Fahrzeugpreis (inkl. USt.)
109.242,00 €
Der Fahrzeugpreis für Ihr ausgewähltes Finanzprodukt versteht sich inkl. der Sonderausstattung, jedoch ohne die Überführungskosten.
Gesamtkreditbetrag (Nettodarlehensbetrag)
109.242,00 €
Der Gesamtkreditbetrag entspricht dem Kaufpreis des Leasingfahrzeugs.
Gesamtbetrag
62.613,72 €
Der Gesamtbetrag setzt sich aus der einmaligen Leasing-Sonderzahlung und der Summe aller monatlichen Leasingraten über die vereinbarte Vertragslaufzeit zusammen.
Leasingfaktor
1.037
Wir möchten Ihnen die Möglichkeit geben unsere Leasingangebote transparent miteinander vergleichen zu können. Daher möchten wir Ihnen den Leasing Faktor auf Basis des Fahrzeugpreis darlegen.

LEASINGFAKTOR AUF DEN FAHRZEUGPREIS
___
Vereinfacht gesagt, stellt der Leasingfaktor die Kosten ins Verhältnis mit dem Nutzen, den Sie im Austausch erhalten. Er gibt an, "wieviel" Auto Sie für die monatliche Leasingrate bekommen. Zur Berechnung des Leasingfaktors werden mehrere Eigenschaften eines Angebotes miteinbezogen.

Dennoch gibt es bei der Interpretation dessen einige Besonderheiten zu beachten. Um den Leasingfaktor korrekt deuten zu können, sollten Eigenschaften wie die Marke des Fahrzeugs, die identische Fahrzeugklasse oder auch die vereinbarte jährliche Fahrleistung und die Vertragslaufzeit übereinstimmen.
Mtl. Leasingrate (inkl. USt.):
1.132,37 € (36 Raten)
Mtl. Servicerate (inkl. USt.):
0,00 € (36 Raten)
Mtl. Gesamtrate (inkl. USt.)[a]:
1.132,37 € (36 Raten)

 

Thank you for clarifying.