My 39 month lease will be finished in March. Now back to the proverbial question...do I buy or go to the 63. Residual is about 49K on the beast and I have 39k on the odo. I did get an extended warranty to 100K, which is transferrable with the vehicle.

My dealer said that there may be some wiggle room in negotiating the final sell price with MB Financial if you "don't act too interested in the buyout". Whereas others I have heard from say there is no further discussion. What are your thoughts?

I am leaning toward the purchase (using someone outside MB Financial, of course), with plans to do a stage 1 or 2 down the road.

I am a fan of leasing. Drive it like you stole it, turn it in, get another! Currently I have a 300c SRT8 on lease and an ML350. e63 will be replacing the 300c SRT8 for sure.

It's generally a bad financial decision to buy your car after your lease is up. It would have been less expensive to purchase the car originally. I would recommend you turn it in and get a smoking deal on a new E63, if they're still to be had.

The only time that does not hold true, is when you are able to write off the lease payments as a business expense, in which case, you end up paying less than if you had bought it with a loan.

This is my situation. My dilemma is whether to convert to the 63 now, or wait 3+ years ( in the meantime drive the S**t outta this one) and see what AMG has to offer.

From a financial standpoint, it doesn't matter what the OP paid in lease expense or whether in hindsight that was the best way to go - it's a sunk cost. The only issue is whether he can buy the car off of lease for fair market or better.

I'm in the same boat you are and I will likely buy my E55 at the end of the lease in four months for several reasons:
1)I have a lot of of money in mods.
2) I still love my car with its brutal acceleration and luxury appointments.
3) I see no real upgrade by making a changeover.
4) I have the fastest E55.lol
5) It still turns heads.

Rock do it! I was in the same situation...my residual was 39K and I only had 20K miles with a lot of mods. Anything comparable was going to be a whole lot more than 39K plus I couldn't see myself letting anyone have this car after getting all these mods done.

I like the fresher look of the E63 but not enough to switch and not especially after getting my Beast much faster! I'll still turn more heads than the E63 by just hitting the accelerator and let the exhaust note sing.

Wolverine...I'd wait for the E63TT and drive the crap out of your E55 while we let AMG skunkworks do their magic.

Jon

Rock,

Any problems doing mods with my mileage?

My thoughts exactly. Without starting another flame war of 63 vs 55, there just doesn't seem to me to be enough of an upgrade to justify the switch. We also have the the mod potential which has been tried and true

There is a lot that the 63 has to offer in terms of handling over the 55K. If I ever had an itch to autocross, then the 63 would be my choice over the 55...BUT I've got the drag bug and the 55K just fits the bill for my tastes (esp. from the modding perspective). BUT based on the rumblings @ VRP about coilovers and sway bars, the 55 might even make the autocross a viable hobby, too.

With the VRP improvements to 63 its getting closer, but not close enough for me.

AMGFan,

Look at some of the vids from DerekFSU's rides on Road America with his E. There is plenty of handling potential with the 55's

Back to the question at hand, though. Has anyone had success in negotiating a lower buyout price than the residual?

Sorry, that was ChicagoX's video...

https://mbworld.org/forums/showthrea...ad+america+vid

I'm getting ready to drop some VRP cams in my car with 27,000miles and I'm not worried.

I had this conversation with Cory from Kleemann USA and he told me that he is not afraid of with 55s with miles on them. He thinks that they are put together well and will hold up even after mods. They don't suddenly fall apart when you reach 50,000 miles.