cjmegha

Well the search is finally over. After having placed 1K deposit a Laguna Niguel MB and waiting 2 months to find out I still did not have a production date for my order. I printed out a list of all the MB Dealers in CA, and started dialing. I found 8 dealers that had the SLK55, four of them had Iridium Silver which is the color I was looking for. All four dealers wanted a premium; FJ MB was the worst, MSRP + 30K. They are on drugs.... so I gave them the finger and kept looking. House of imports asking for a 15K premium, Calabasas wanted 5K; I asked Calabasas if they would sell for MSRP, I would give a deposit over the phone and close the deal this weekend. They replied I would have to make a offer in person, I stated WTF@#$#@$ so I would have to drive 2-3 hours one way to get turned down uuugggg!!! Frustration set in at this point. Sacramento stated they would have the Iridium in one week, come to find out it was a Black SLK55. Final call of the evening Rusnak Arcadia 10K premium, I stated MSRP I would close the deal tonight (Last Tuesday) salesman stated he would call me back. 30 minutes later he called back and said they will sell for MSRP, I almost shed a tear at this point. Told the wife to get in the car, we are going to Arcadia at 7:15pm dealer closed at 9:00pm, out of the dealer at 10:15.
Iridium w/black-red, NAV, Lights, and Pre Package.

WOW, this is a nice car.

Deuce

FYI, when I went to Calabasas, the SLK 55 AMG was marked up $85,000 including options, the sticker price was $67,950. Looked at the car, i found a mess up in the cover for the convertable top, the windows were not working properly, the convertable top would not go out of the trunk (would come out half way and stop), and the exhausts were not even loud (my slk 55 AMG has loud notes when you turn on the car). The car was a lemon and they were asking for $85,000 (my dad said to the salesman that he wouldn't even pay sticker price for this lemon car, $67,950, and the salesman laughed and said I wouldn't buy it too.

I got my SLK 55 AMG from South Bay Mercedes Benz in Torrance. It is about 50 miles from where I live, but my dad goes down in that area a lot because his shopping center is there. So thats how he found the SLK 55 AMG.

Calabasas is a really good dealership, but when you know you have a lemon car why don't you send it back or at least fix it. Trying to sell a lemon makes the dealership go down the drain. I think they didn't want to return it back to AMG because of the costs and if you think about it how many SLK 55 AMGs will they get.

theitalianjob

Congrats! patience finally pays off

Omegaonne

The House of Imports in Buena Park has a Black/Black SLK55 for $78k. I saw it on sat.

northbenz

First, congratulations on picking up your SLK55 at MSRP from Rusnak Arcadia Mercedes. May I suggest a forum honor roll of dealers who have and will sell the SLK55 at MSRP. There is enough profit in this car to discourage price gouging in the first place and although the supply is obviously limited, so is the demand. I can understand a dealership placing a ridiculous mark up just so they can keep one on the showroom floor - but if they have two in inventory they are cutting their own throats to not sell the others at MSRP since the way it works in the auto business is that you have to turn (sell what is on your lot) to earn (become entitled to another allocated replacement).

Last month one of my SUV's was totaled in a wreck. I went to the local Lexus dealer and offered to upgrade to one on his lot for $2000 over factory invoice - while ignoring the fact that he had them marked up $3,000 over MSRP. The dealer would not even come down to MSRP. I went to the local Honda dealer and bought a 2005 Pilot for $200 over factory invoice. The Lexus dealer still has his unsold SUV's sitting on his lot two weeks later. He could have had $2000 in his pocket with a replacement on its way.

dosers

Congrats !!
Who was your sales person ?
Yeah, I saw this 55 on the netstar list for Rusnak last November - it's their 2nd SLK 55 AMG so far; and they've been pretty good doing and guaranteeing MSRP. They DO try to hike up quite a bit with the '1st car' of whatever they get (i.e. expect them to try to ask premium for the '1st' SLK 55 AMG, the 1st CLS 55 and so on), but as a whole, I found them much, much more reasonable than any of the other dealers I checked at the time I purchased mine last year !

All the best,
Dan

dosers

Well, I can appreciate the 'Lemon' sentiment, but I don't know that I would call the car a lemon just because it might have a problem with the top ? They can and obviously would fix it before purchase. Heck, my new 911 Carrera had a top problem fresh from factory - and the dealer fixed it beautifully. It happens - with any car. As to the sound - not sure what to say. Could it be the environment - that makes up half of the sound you hear (reverb). In any case, the markup is of course ridicioulus. And obviously a dealership SELLING a car without fixing it would be dumb - again, I would argue they'd fix it if you plunk down the cash.
But in any case I think it's quite a rare / unheard of that a car is being sent back to the factory (in this case Mercedes in Bremen - cars don't get manufacturerd or put together at AMG!) unless it's DOA without change to repair and sell it as new...
Cheers,
Dan

cjmegha

Yeah, this dealer was easy to deal with. My salesman was Jeff Lu.

Silver_Lana

Congrats on your car.
I still cannot belive the premiums some dealers are trying to extract from potential customers on these cars 30k over MSRP??!! Good grief!
Anyway enjoy your new roadster!

dosers

Ah, yes ! I know Jeff quite well :-)
Have a great time with your car - how is it so far ?!!!

D

cjmegha

Drove it from the dealer in the rain, cleaned it up when i got home.
Took it out last Thursday when we had a one day break from the rain to get the windows tinted. back in the garage, it has been raining since Thursday night, which blows. I can hardly wait to take this car for a cruise. This las weekend all I did was set up personlized settings in the car IE Seat, mirrors, programmed the opener, set up map point in the NAV, and of course loaded the six disk changer. SO FAR SO GOOD>!!!!

dosers

Cool. Though I think you'll have to bite the bullet and just take it out in the rain - it won't stop, really, for another month or 2 for any length of time ;-)

You got the 320 DVD Nav system, right ? The front-slot loader takes DVDs (not just CD even though the logo doesn't display it !). Use the rainy days to make a mp3 DVD, folders and all and you almost won't need the changer anymore ;-)

Have fun,
Dan

cjmegha

Yes, it has the NAV. I did not know it will play MP3's I will have to create a disk, Thanks for the tip!!!

I did find another tip, if you get a euro display unit, it will play DVD Movies.
The Sat button is replaced with a DVD button. I saw this unit on E-bay going for 3K, a little high on the price. I'll wait till I find a cheaper euro display unit.

Thanks cjmegha

ELY

Just info. for those who may be interested. Paid 15K over sticker at Calstar (Glendale CA). Waited three weeks from the time I walked into the dealership and told them what I wanted until I drove away with my new car.

dosers

Yeah, that is very cool. The DVD Nav system in Europe plays DVDs by default. It looks pretty good, but it's not quite up to par with a dedicated display / player, and doesn't have a lot of options. Also, it does turn itself off if you go faster than 12km/h.
It's my understanding that to replace the units in the US, you need in fact a whole new head-unit, and there's obviously some install involved - so while the $3k is a lot, it's probably not that crazy.
Yeah, the mp3 DVD thing is very cool nonetheless. I am using DVD+RW, which all work without a hitch (I had one DVD +R that it didnt' recognize, even though it was 'closed').
All the best,
Dan

dosers

So basically they had one on the boat already (either one of the bonus allocation from MB, a store ordered, or customer ordered unit) and it happened to be the exact match (options / colour) to what you wanted ?
Very good for you - though I would never pay 15k over sticker; it's just against my utter believes to give the dealer 15K, for not having done anything really, in addition to the nice margin on these cars they make on sticker in any case. BUT, if you had no problem doing it, that's cool of course.

D

cjmegha

15K over, not that anyone would sell the car after they bought it right away, but how do you expect to keep the resale value if you pay 15K over MSRP>?

cjmegha

Did not know DVD turns off after a set speed, good tip again!!!

THE SUN IS OUT.... TIME FOR A CRUISE AFTER WORK...YA..
Thanks cjmegha

dosers

Cool ! Have a fun !! Lot's of potholes and debris though, look out :-)
Yeah, the DVD VIDEO part (not the rest of course) turns off at 12km/h - but it's of course possible someone has some firmware update that will turn that off - not that I'd advocate that ! :-)

rusnakmb

Congrt to both dosers and cjmegha,


I hope you two enjoy your SLK55 AMG, great car!

dosers

Sure do, and it sure is a great car :-)

Thanks,
Dan

ELY

[QUOTE=cjmegha]15K over, not that anyone would sell the car after they bought it right away, but how do you expect to keep the resale value if you pay 15K over MSRP>?[/QUOTE

I don't pretend that it is a sound investment. It is a toy and nothing more.