hellcat

With the release of the new SLK 55 how much do you think that will affect depreciation on the 32? In another thread somebody said a dealer was offering $38,000 for a 2002 I think. Once the new AMG comes out how much more will that force down the resale price of a 32?

newsguy

Good point, I personally hope it does, so I can afford a pre-owned one

430

I would not expect the new model to effect the price very much. The biggest hit is in the first year of ownership. Esp. if there is a waiting list for the R171.

hellcat

I'm saving to buy a pre-owned SLK when I graduate college. Chances are its going to be a 320 Sport because I won't be able to afford anything more but I'm still haning onto that hope that the 32 depreciates just enough that I can afford id.

WayneE

Resale on the R170 SLK32 (and SLKs in general?) is poor.

I posted in the SLK forum, but I recently sold my SLK32 and bought an SL500. The dealer gave me trade in for the SLK32, which was $35k. My car was an '02 with 27k miles. I could have sold it private party for a few k more, but it was still a considerable hit.

SledDog

Both beautiful cars, Wayne. I love the SL. Some day, it will be the car for me, just not yet.

Wow, you only realized about ~38% depreciation. Why do you think that's bad? If you sold it yourself, you might have seen only ~31% if you really got a good price. Either way, how many other cars hold up in value that well? Other MB's and the like. Lexus' LS430 and SC430 are right in the same ballpark percentage-wise, might be ever so slightly better. When you look at the dollar amount alone, depreciation always seems worse when the purchase price is higher. A lot of lower priced items, vehicles, depreciate faster on a percentage basis. The heaviest depreciation is the first year followed by the second, and so on. Some folks won't buy new cars because of the 20+% hit you'll see in the first year. While others put value on other parameters and only buy new.

If you bought your car to drive it, don't worry about the depreciation. It's worth as much as you enjoy it.

dbtk

Looked another way your SLK32 had a 62% retained value. SledDog is right, your car has a very decent resale value and a private sale would have yielded a greater one. Look at the 2004 BMW 545i--there is one on eBay that is listed at $50K and it has been there since February. That's $12K lower than list!

I sold my 1998 SLK230 in 2002 for $25.8K or a retained value of 58%--I think I can yield close to that when I sell my SLK32 in about 18 months. (Before you start pulling out your calculators--I bought my SLK32 for $6K below list in October 2001 with 4K miles already on it.) You always get hit on the first 12-18 months of first buying the car, then it levels off.

SledDog

Leave it to me to state the negative (depreciation) rather than the positive (retained value).


Sounds like you got an excellent deal on your 32. When I wanted to buy, I couldn't find any pre-owned locally - the one that I went to see was already sold by the time I got there. So, just decided to buy a new one .

May we all have high retained values when and if we decide to part with our cars (to get that SL65 or SLR maybe).