Yeah, I've lost a boatload every time I've owned a car that had a body style change after I bought it. When the new 7-series came out in 2003/4, I lost $15k+ on my E38 740i almost instantly. Same thing happened when the R230 SL's came out, except worse.

 

Um, I have no good news,

 

I hear you. For most people trades become complicate because they haven't decided the numbers on the trade and the new car. Once you know how much you are going to pay and how much you want for the trade, then it is academic at that point. Also, most get too emotionaly attached to the process. Once can always walk out and come back later or go to another place. Of course if the car is super rare and hard to come by in the options you want, experience may be different

 

He's wrong. 10K comes off when the official MB pics and specs are released along with it's official release date. Then about a month before they hit the showroom you loose the other 10K. See, there's a little time before you lose the entire 20K.

 

Be very careful when considering listings on e-bay. I know a lot of past cars that have been on there that were actually subjected to flood damage and other suspicious "fixes" in states where stating such damages were not required by law. I did a quick search on AutoTrader.com and Cars.com, and it seems that all 2007 and 2008 E63s with 18k to 22k are being sold from $63k to $68k. In my opinion, your car should be worth a little bit more since yours is more rare because of the performance package. Maybe $55k to $58k to be fair. By the way, I only found 3 cars with the performance package among all the listings. It is a very rare option ($9k option).

You should list your car privately. The right buyer (usually a car enthusiast who wants specific options) will come along.

 

Ah, it's our resident pricing expert, here once again (11/14 posts now) to spread The Word about AMG depreciation.

Yes, folks, it's true, check out his posting history: "isellpower" seems to have made it his mission in life to enter into any and all threads having anything remotely to do with pricing on the E/CLS AMG forums and either:

1) tell people who are selling an AMG that they're asking too much, and that examples can be found for less on Fleabay;

2) tell people who are purchasing an AMG that they're paying too too much, and that examples can be found for less on Fleabay;

3) dogpile on about horrible depreciation any chance he gets, again using prices from Fleabay as The Gold Standard.

Not sure whether he hates AMGs, or works for Fleabay, but something smells here.

 

Do not feel too bad. Alot of cars in the E63 league are suffering. I've seen auction prices of 06-07 M5s go in the $40-48K range for 20-30K miles. M6s don't do so much better.

Good thing for buyers like me, maybe I can pickup an 08 M5 next year for mid to high 50s!

 

Alright, fair enough about eBay. The whole "sight unseen" thing does tend to make prices track closer to wholesale than retail. So forget eBay, if this is still a $60k-$70k car, then explain these:

2007 E63, almost identical miles as the OP, CPO for sale at MB Dealer, asking $56k:

http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.js...=&cardist=2142

Another one, similar miles, asking $57k:

http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.js...=&cardist=1957

14k miles, full factory warranty left, MB Dealer asking $59k:

http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.js...e=&cardist=874

Similar miles to the OP, asking $58k:

http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.js...e=&cardist=863

Same miles as OP, MB Dealer, asking $59k:

http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.js...=&cardist=2356

I'm sorry, but the numbers aren't adding up. These are all nice cars, and if they're asking in the high $50k's, then they're going to sell in the low $50k's. And most of these are at MB Dealers, not private party. Private party cars will usually sell for less. So if the Porsche dealer really offered him $53k, and he wants the 911, he really should jump all over it.

 

That car has 6,000 miles more than his and not all the options. If you read my post, I compared all the ones on autotrader with 18k to 21k miles.

That car has almost 30k miles, that's 9,000 miles extra (almost a year worth of use).

That one is a very good deal in my opinion as long as it hasn't been hit or repaired or anything of that sort.

Again, the OP stated 21k miles, and he has a lot of options, one of which costs $9k (P030) and very extremely rare to find (even on autotrader). I know it doesn't mean much to the average buyer, but to a true car enthusiast, that option can make a difference. I say he should try to sell it privately or at least give it a shot.

 

His car has 21k on it, and that one has 26k. That's 5k difference in mileage, which is pretty comparable. No matter how you cut it, his 21k mile car is high mileage for being an '07 when we are still in '08, especially considering how many <15k mile E63's there are floating around in the marketplace. His car needs to be compared with other cars that have in the 20k's for mileage. A 5k difference certainly isn't worth $10k, I'm sure we agree on that much. Maybe the 5k difference is worth $1k or $2k at most, which means his is still worth in the $50k's, which is the point I was making.

And with the exception of Xenons and Nav, options really aren't worth squat after the initial new sale.

That's pretty silly though. In the real world, a 26k mile car and a 21k mile car are a lot more comparable than an 18k mile car and a 21k mile car. There are mileage "break points" in valuation, and 20k is one of them. People view a 20k+ mile car differently than an 18k mile car, and then on top of that 20k is usually a top-end number when people are plugging their parameters into ebay, autotrader, etc., while searching for a car, so that mileage will be excluding a lot of potential buyers, which lowers the value.

It has 29k+ on it, and his car has 21k+ on it, for an 8k difference. It's still much more comparable than measuring a car in the 20k's to a car in the teens. Still, it's a big difference, so I'll give you this one.

That "oh it's probably been in a wreck" thing is getting as bad on here as "I'd still take him in the twisties" is over on the BMW forums. Come on man, it's a 12 month old 14k mile car retailing at an MB dealer, I really doubt it's some junker. And it's not a steal, autotrader and eBay are absolutely loaded with '07 CPO E63's in the $50k's. This isn't some once in a lifetime deal.

I know you don't want to believe me, but options are next to worthless on resale. There are some standouts where you lose a lower percentage of their new cost than with other options, nav and xenons being the biggies, but 90% of the potential buyers for his car probably won't know what the P030 package is, and the rest won't care. And the small percentage who do care still aren't going to drop an extra $10k on it, which is basically what you're arguing.

But here's the problem. We all know the rate at which cars are depreciating currently, and on top of that he's going to lose his shirt when the new model comes out. These things aren't even arguable. So then calculate out how short the amount of time is that he'd have to sit on it in order to burn through the difference between the extra few grand he could get private-party over what the Porsche dealer has already offered him for it. It's not going to take long at all...a couple more months of sitting on it will eat through any premium he might have gotten.

And that's not even considering the extra couple grand he's going to have to pay in sales taxes on the Porsche, because now it's a straight-up sale and he won't be subsidizing 3/4ths of the purchase price with a trade-in, which gets him around the sales taxes on that portion of the price. And then you have to waste your time with all the tire-kickers and joyriders, and you still haven't addressed the fact that most people are going to want to finance the car, which is becoming more and more impossible in the current credit environment, further reducing the pool of private party buyers.

No matter how you slice and dice this, there's an extremely strong chance that's going to wind up losing more money by not just trading it.

 

Agreed, and that's what I was saying, his car should be in the $57k to $58k range, and dealers will sell them for $60k to $65k.

The options themselves are not worth much, but they do have a value, as some buyers prefer paying a little extra for certain options than buying a fancy car without options.

The OP gave us the figure 21,000 miles, so I'm assuming he either rounded down a couple of hundred miles or rounded up a couple of hundred miles, and so I rounded the 29.9k miles to 30k miles. But even if you consider another 8k to 9k extra usage miles worth only $2k to $3k, the car would be in the low $60k mark.

I don't know if this car has had any damage or not, but you and I can at least agree that AutoTrader is full of them, and if you're not careful you can easily fall for one. Most of the cars in that mileage range are being sold for $65k not $55k. Here are some from autotrader and cars.com search:

14k miles selling for $70k CPO

http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.js...ce=&cardist=91


12k miles for $70k CPO

http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.js...=&cardist=1953

13k miles for $65k CPO

http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.js...=&cardist=2336

14k for $60k non CPO

http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.js...=&cardist=1737

13k miles for $65k non CPO

http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.js...=&cardist=2326

14k miles for $63k non CPO

http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.js...e=&cardist=375

There were only 33 matches on AutoTrader for cars under 15k miles and none had the P30 package. If you subtract $3k from each of these prices for the 6k miles difference, the car would still be in the upper 50s. Here is the link to all of the matches:

http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/search...first_record=1

Also, Manheim numbers for 07 E63 are running around $56k or slightly higher, which doesn't include auction fees, inspections, transportation, etc....

I never said or expected someone to pay $10k for P30 package on a used car, but I do expect someone to pay 20% to 25% of the original price. So if the option was $8k, I'd pay $1.5k to $2k extra for a super rare option, that's a 75% to 80% depreciation, which is a fair amount. And I do agree that most people won't care about P30 package, but like I said before, some buyers do care about it plenty.


I don't think he'll lose much if he lists his car for sale for a couple of months and try his luck. If the car sells for $4k to $5k more, then good for him. And if the car does not sell, he can always go back to the Porsche dealer and work out a deal. Car dealers are desperate in these times, and he can easily get them to at least match the previous offer. In the end, he has nothing to lose.

 

CWW: And that's not even considering the extra couple grand he's going to have to pay in sales taxes on the Porsche, because now it's a straight-up sale and he won't be subsidizing 3/4ths of the purchase price with a trade-in, which gets him around the sales taxes on that portion of the price. And then you have to waste your time with all the tire-kickers and joyriders, and you still haven't addressed the fact that most people are going to want to finance the car, which is becoming more and more impossible in the current credit environment, further reducing the pool of private party buyers.

No matter how you slice and dice this, there's an extremely strong chance that's going to wind up losing more money by not just trading it.[/QUOTE]



Spoken like a TRUE Florida Law student, NOW get back to studying!!!!

 

Well after all that, I think you and I totally agree on the value. And I agree that a good asking price for him would be in the $58k-$59k range. So I'm definitely with you there.

The problem, as I see it, is that even if he gets his full asking price, then I still don't see how the potential extra $5k or $6k is worth taking on the hassles of trying to sell it himself, or worth taking on the risk that it won't sell for 3 or 4 months, by which time the car will actually be worth LESS than the porsche dealer has already offered him.

I've sold cars through ebay and autotrader before, and it's a giant hassle. For every guy who's actually interested in buying the car, you deal with 10 people who are just out to waste your time and go joyriding. It seems like a big roll of the dice to me, and seems like there is a pretty strong chance that he could wind up worse off than if he just took their offer.

Maybe I'm just freaked out by the state of the economy, because there were a couple times when I did exactly what you're suggesting and it worked out great and landed me some extra money to put towards my next car. But with the market the way it is, it just strikes me that it might not work out so great right now. Plus, the three times I've taken a trade off the table and sold it myself, the dealer was REALLY lowballing me...it wasn't like a 10% difference in my case, they were offering me like 30%-50% of what I could go and sell it for. So I did. But he's so close already, that it doesn't seem worth it.

 

As the economy gets worse manufactures may withhold payments to dealers and credit gets tighter. Two weeks from now, the dealer may pull the offer. the last few weeks I've seen 3x more e55s and e63s for sale. Seems like many small dealerships or one man ops are looking at the price drops for these cars at auction, pick them up and try to sell them at a premium. I would take the offer ASAP since you are hedging you bet to find that 'one' discriminating buyer for the Performance Package. And just like the real estate market, you will be chasing the market down. Dealers can play the price game (not sure how long they can last) because they play with financing and have more services to offer the buyer on the back end so they can sit on a for sale price. Not too long ago an 07 e63 Wagon with 14K +/- miles was advertised by a reputable Bay Area MBZ store. The price dropped from 72K to $67K to $63K to $59K in three mos. I don't know if the car sold, but that is the state of the market. Good luck and get into that P-car - you'll forget about the numbers once you take it out for a spin on a Saturday morning.

 

One upside? I don't think that the model change will provide the same drop in prices that you usually see. New car sales will be flat - you won't have the folks trading "just because this is the 'latest and greatest'. Used car sales, esp of high end luxury cars, may actually improve first when the economy starts to turn - because folks might go the "buy used, let some other schmoe eat the depreciation" route and while they will want a luxury car, they won't want to spend new car luxury pricing.

There's just not that much money left in these cars to drop another $20K on a model change.

They might just get more attractive if the new model starts hovering around $100K.

 

Famous last words. Lol.

 

The engine in the new model will also play a role. If Mercedes/AMG do indeed go to a 5.0L Twin Turbo 580 to 600 hp, sales may not be so bad . But if the new model comes out with the current 6.2L with only 20 to 30 hp increase, then I can foresee many people keeping their current models especially as VRP continues to raise the level for the 55 (VR700) and 63 (VR570 and VR600) mods

 

Has anyone seen the 2010 body? I posted pics on a previous thread albeit for a wagon. The tail lights look more Japanese kind of like what Range Rover did to their SUV.

 

Wow, kind of surprised on the amount of action this thread is getting. For the record, I stated in my original thread that I do not have P30, distronic, or pano. I do have a Renntech ELM, illuminated door sills, AMG mats, hardwired V1, clear bra, sprint booster, ipod, VRP airfilters, and Bluetooth puck which should all add $10,000 to the car

 

Interesting read about the current used car market (I think from a Porsche Salesman):

http://forums.rennlist.com/rennforum...d.php?t=466999

 

before you traded in..

sell me your wheels and tires.. and you can have my used E55 wheels..

$1k cash + my used wheels and tires.

you can at least screw the dealer for something..

I have the same offer to another CLS55 owner about to trade in the car.

The same goes to any other E63 owner ready to take the plunge.

 

Oh ya, I personally think the W211 is much better looking than the new japmobile they're coming out with...

Mercedes has really lost it lately, styling-wise. Well, except maybe for the redesigned SL that just came out for this year with the square front...I saw one of those at the dealer and my jaw dropped. SWEET looking car. And come to think of it, the new S-class I think is a beautiful car as well, so I guess I take back my comment on their styling.

But regardless, the new E for next year looks like a turd from the pics I've seen.

 

I'll keep it in mind but I'm probably not going to trade it in. I usually have a set of 19" AMG III wheels (with the correct offset for the W211 E) on my car, but right now I have a set of E63 P30 package wheels on the car. I'm probably going to sell the P30 wheels in a couple of weeks once I get a curb rash fixed on my 19's. Would you be interested in buying those? I wouldn't be interested in your E55 wheels in trade though.

 

I love AMG's, E55's and CLS55's. Will you eat crow when I post pics of mine in a month or two? I think it's cool having my own Estalker.

 

Could care less...point is, as I discussed in this post and this post in this thread, you are completely in la-la land wrt the factors that go into auto valuation, and have a track record of doing the same thing in other forums that you're doing here. You're not contributing anything, just poo-pooing the value of people's assets based upon a position of ignorance and bottom-of-the-barrel price quotes from Fleabay or mom 'n' pop auction special auto dealers, not to mention trying to claim that wholsale auction prices are equivalent to retail resale value, which is laughable.

It's like looking at a set of numbers conntaining the weights of several dozen 5'11" tall males, finding that a few of them are 135 pounds, and then declaring this to be "the" weight for males who are 5'11" tall. Absurd.

I don't know what your motivations are, and don't particularly care, but I do care that you're trying to set lowball prices as "the norm".