Looking to buy an E55: Premium on low miles?
 

Yup.. Looking to pick up an E55 car and I've had a deal fall through, and a couple situations where common ground couldn't be reached.

What, if any, should be the premium be of a car that's lower mileage? I mean above and beyond say KBB or NADA?

How low mile are you talking? If you want lowest possible (like sub 40k) your best bet is waiting for one to pop up on Bring A Trailer where you’ll pay borderline extortion prices but the cars are generally very well documented and cared for. It’s very hard to put an exact number, like a % over book value, as it depends on a lot of other things. I would say somewhere around a 30-50% price increase over a similarly optioned high mileage car but it also depends on service records, etc.

I'm not looking for anything that low.. I'm talking in the 70-90K mile range.

Mid to upper teens in price is where that’ll be I think. Maybe low 20’s if it’s got a lot of options or desirable color like white/pano or a designo interior/exterior. For sedans of course, wagons are a whole different game.

If you have an Instagram account, you could reach out to @theconfortibrothers because they are always looking at Mercedes prices and have posted stories highlighting low mileage, reasonably priced E55’s before among other Mercedes. They could probably help you find one. They own the 416k mile E55 among other Mercedes.

there is a 6k mile e55 for sale on hemmings, $45k

For that kind of money I'd buy a 12-13 E63 car!

I'm not collecting.. I'm going to drive the thing..

Oddly, the deal that fell through was an 80K mile white/pano car. It was for 15,200. It was at a dealer and they backed out of it due to cost of correcting the issues it had.. They then told me it was sent back to auction??? I don't know..

It might make more sense to concentrate on a car with a well documented service record instead of just low miles. I'd happily buy a car with 100k especially modern cars as long as they've got a detailed service history showing owners that legitimately took care of the car vs a garage queen that sat for many years. Who knows how deteriorated all those seals and bushings might be from sitting unused. The other thing there is a sense of freedom driving a car that has already had a lot of miles as you're not worrying about adding more miles to an already low mileage vehicle. YMMV.

I agree with this statement in general but this is especially true for the w211 AMG. Maintenance is critical for these cars - there are many cream puffs out there that have NOT had fluids/tires/filters/plugs changed appropriately.

Wait a couple of years for the next recession, and we can all laugh at the ridiculous prices being paid for everything on Bring-a-trailer....

I once bought a car that had very low miles. Car only averaged around 3K miles a year. Well, when I got it, I started driving it. Within the first few months, things started going wrong. When I took it to the dealer; they said that I had encountered a common problem that most people experience around 30K to 40K miles, it's always covered under the new car warranty. Well, this car hadn't even encountered that problem yet because the mileage was so low.
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I highly recommend you getting a car that has seen at least 5K miles a year and was consistently driven; meaning it never sat for more than three weeks. Undervoltage cars (cars with weak batteries are undervoltage) stress their computer modules. And these cars like to be driven.

If I were in the market; I'd be looking for a car that's a 2005-2006, E55, all original, preferably one with fewer owners, a vehicle that was properly maintained, dealer maintained, someone who spared no expense, and a dealer who was following the maintenance schedule. Important things; check the transmission fluid was done around at around 40K miles, and I would recommend it be done every 40K to 60K miles after that; spark plugs at 100K miles; fuel filter at 60K (this is costly, so many people don't do this one, especially if it's not the first owner); and make sure you've got a driver who is aware of the service necessary and is an active owner, not someone just blindly trusting the dealer to do everything - avoid a passive owner.

There are E55s with original engines and transmissions that have lasted over 300K miles or 500K kilometers with relatively few problems and deliver very high performance. This is definitely a future classic!

I don't recall whether it was at Mecum or Barrett that I saw an E55 go for $8500 - - - most likely there were issues.

when i was researching i determined that each 10k miles was worth around $1k. a couple 29k mile e55 sold on BAT for 22K. a car i had been tracking on ebay with a solid maintenance record and 120K miles sold for $12.5k. i bought my 47k mile car with little maintenance records for $18k and have put almost $3k into it in the first 9 months of ownership.

what were the issues with the car at the dealership?

The deal breaker was the fact that none of keyless-go functionality was there. No push button start, and none of the doors worked. So it was 4 door handles, and whatever it was going to take for the push to start. The rest of the stuff was minor, nit-pick stuff on my part. Who knows.. I was told they took it back to auction, so it may pop up again? I wasn't all that happy at the time.. to me make the deal.. stick to it. But in the end, I got all my deposit back AND the money I spent on having a 3rd party inspector come out and look at it... which is how I found out about the issues in the first place.

I told them I'd pay them wholesale and deal with it.. but that went no where. So.. that car is out in the either somewhere.

So in the meantime, I'm just putting around in my bargain W210 E320...

I’m selling mine 157k miles for $12k well maintained and nice mods 90% highway driven. I bought a Bi-Turbo car and don’t need the e55 anymore.

https://chicago.craigslist.org/nch/c...934186198.html

overpriced m3 dude .......

I truly don't need another amg, but at that price I'd like to see the options list just for fun.

I just did this market research and bought one. Youll pay mid-high teens depending on other variables like owners, maintenance history, accident, stock/mod, etc.

Well.. I'm happy to say my search is over.

I bought an 06 car today. It's not super heavily optioned.. but had the things I was wanting, the "big" features being the ventilated seats, and keyless go.

But the beakdown. 2 owner. Owner #2 had owned it since the car had 7200 miles. I have service records going back to 2009, the car was exclusively dealer maintained. All oil changes, brake/coolant flushes done, plugs and wires done, valve cover gaskets, etc..

76K miles. Silver, with black.

All for 13.5K. how 'bout them apples?

Pics!

Congrats and yes we want to see pics, sounds like a great car. I just picked up a similar car as well.

I will be selling mine very soon after 14yrs of ownership