Mercedes Follows Ford?

[hawk20]

Just my opinion, but back when we first purchased our first family mercedes cars, was in the late 80's and i agree with some of the comments before, that the cars were seen to be more expensive back then, and discounts weren't achievable at all. Nowadays, the commercial world is more competitive then ever. I don't think Mercedes would survive on their own under current climate withouth either going mass, or merging with another company (taking over, or being taken over.. whichever)..

One thing which i think is hurting the Mercedes Brand, is MB Direct centres. Basically wholesale Mercs.. come and get them.. I negotiated £3k off the list of out already cheap C220 CDI and managed to secure a superb finance deal out of house from MB, and have done three more since.

Were looking at a New S320 CDI for my father a few months back, as we thought we would beable to have relatively low depreciation driving for a year or so while demand exceeded supply like with most new prestigious models, but on ringing round, i found out most dealers had a 3 week lead, with normal colours/spec combinations, so we decided spending £63k on this car would be a bad move. Now im seeing S320CDI's for around £55k on the autotrader from external MB traders, and even Direct centre's are telling me not to secure any S320's for any more then 58K for my clients!

Not at all what i expected, basically they appear to be £10k over list.. so we're waiting for them to drop to around £45-50k before moving on a personal car. 05 Plate S320's going for £30k! on pitch, so that means £27-9k for our little arranged discount plan.

Im sorry, but i have very little faith in Merc residuals, due to the mass marketing they have deployed. Was working on a vehicle quotation for a client last week. S65 AMG price new: £148k, 2005/05 with 8k miles with celebrity first owner = £80k on pitch. This car has a residual balloon of £45k after 5 years, so that represents with no deposit, that this super car can be had for less then £1k a month. Hardly prestigious pricing.. Servicing/running will obviously be a different story, but i wouldn't touch any top end Merc right now.

A lot of customers are moving over to Audi for this reason. I think Audi not discounting heavily and following a quite rigid framework for differentiation between their differing price entry brands helps a lot. MB direct has ruined the Merc brand, and major upheaval would be required to bring it back.

The sales manager i was working with last month, was telling me, we knocked out over 250 cars this month, good month.. it shocked me, yeah high sales = good, but i know he has been knocking them out left right and centre, by discounting heavily and clearing stock.. hardly prestigious motoring.

Well I'm afraid you exaggerate the Audi position and the Merc one. Just check in the latest What Car magazine and Audis are being discounted like anything. You can have £8k off the A8 6.0 Quattro or £5k off the smaller engined ones. And if you buy a top of the range A8 for £80k afeter 3 years it has a predicted residual of about £30k. Wow!

Looking at the residuals of the C class in What Car -most models over 50% at three years old- they compare well with the A4.

And I'll tell you what is remarkable about Mercs, they go on holding value long after others have vanished from the lists. Only this week an ML270cdi with over 100,000 miles on the clock, from 1999, over 7 years old, sold for over £8k on e-bay.

I criticise regularly, the endless over production of luxury makes by the Germans, the running and early sale of excessive numbers of 'demonstrators' and management cars, leading inevitably to discounting to shift the surplus production, with consequent harm to our residuals. What I don't go along with is the claim that Audi and others aren't doing just the same. The S 320cdi has a residual in What Car of 50% and the Audi A8 diesels are as good but no better.

The moral of the story is to buy 3 and 6 month old or even year old cars at great discounts. What is happening is huge depreciation in the first year (led by discounting, finance offers and the like) Or buy the pre-facelift models soon after the facelift is announced (Merc dealers cut £4500 off E classes). Even better buy after a new model is announced. Diesel S classes (over 60% of S class sales, so ignore tales of petrol model depreciation) from the just replaced 220 series retailed last spring, at Merc dealers, for high thirties money, when only 6 months old having cost £55/56 k plus with modest extras. We all know the world is mad when we see that a car with an October plate is worth more than one with a July plate. Will it do more miles per gallon. Be more comfortable or quicker. No just a silly govt plate and what the neighbours may see. How daft can we all get?