siswati

Guys

we all know the economy is in the ****ter, but this shows just how much trouble and MB and others are in.

http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/...h.imports.kcal

Guess thats why the Mannheim Auction prices on my vehicle (2006 CLS55 (Sticker $110k)) are now under $40,000 for a good condition low mileage car

Two ways to look at it -

• great time to buy is coming up real soon for all luxury cars, or
• I am about to take a major bath on the resale of my beast

tough times for sure

isellpower

I really don't think they're going much lower. There just aren't many cars out there at it's current price range that are in it's league.

jangy

About the only thing these things are worth now is to trade for another AMG .

Vic55

For someone like me who likes to trade in and out of cars every 12-18 months, its win lose situation. I get the deal on the new car but take a bigger hit on the trade and unfortunately the ACV of the trade is the large number drop.

jangy

Aaaaah, the good old days when we could pay slightly more and drive the first half of a BEAST's life........

Improviz

Last set of data I saw was Manheim from 11/15, which had the average for avg condition cars at about $40.6K (going from memory here, don't have spreadsheet in front of me)....the above-average cars were higher, in the mid-to-upper $40's.

Still, luxury cars (and items) right now are taking a hit, as they always do in a recession...this will be a worse recession than most of us have experienced, so the price hit will be correspondingly worse...the asset bubble is popping.

If you trade in on a used example of something else (or can manage to sell outright for a bit more) you will at least help to cushion the loss on your car by way of the lower entry price on the newer one...

But yeah, the luxury market is in the tank right now across the board, and will be for some time. A lot of people were just overextending themselves via using their homes as ATM machines via cashed-out equity which is disappearing in many places, or simply borrowing up to their eyeballs, difficult to do with banks tightening credit and less likely to happen in any case as consumers eyeball the stock and job markets.

It was a good ride up, but it was illusory, a credit binge...now comes the ride down.