Advice on buying S500 W220

[eGuru]

Hi
A friend is looking to buy this car:

http://www.dealer.autotrader.co.uk/15137/stock.htm

(towards bottom of page)

Any advice or feedback greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Jay

 

[television]

The spec is quite good and it looks OK, clean inside, someone else will comment on the price

 

[eGuru]

Thanks, Malcolm. One of the concerns is rust. My 2002 W220 is showing signs of rust (booked into MB bodyshop next week).
I understand MB started galvanizing bodywork around 2003?

 

[television]

Thanks, Malcolm. One of the concerns is rust. My 2002 W220 is showing signs of rust (booked into MB bodyshop next week).
I understand MB started galvanizing bodywork around 2003?

Yes that car should be clear of any rust issues, you can always feed the VIN number into here and check the sale date

http://www.mbclub.ru/mb/vin/index.html?lng=eng

I do this, it confirms everything is genuine

 

[hawk20]

There are two ways of getting rid of any worry about rust. First if you buy a car with FullMBSH you will have a 30 year rust guarantee. Also gives you free breakdown service in UK and abroad (AA for a couple want £160 for UK cover and about £100 for Europe, so it is worth seeking out FullMBSH. I would imagine most reasonably young S class cars will be FullMBSH, but worth checking. Also means all recall work will have been done and any updates pr other service measures issued by Mercedes (often software upgrades and other improvemnets).

Second way to avoid rust worries is to buy a car PRODUCED (not sold) in 2003. Any Merc dealer can tell you the build date from the registration number.

The S class and CL class are built of a combination of aluminium and steel. For the aluminium components there is, of course, no galvanising process.

All steel panels were galvanised from Quarter 1 2003 production onwards.
During the previous quarter (Q4 2002) the process was gradually introduced
on the production line and therefore some vehicles were galvanised during
this lead-up period, but not all.

Personally I would only buy from a Merc dealer (others no doubt will disagree). They tend to get the best cars and you get a really good 12 month guarantee. You may pay about a grand more but I think you get what you pay for. The MB website has a good search engine: -

http://www2.mercedes-benz.co.uk/con...e/products/used_cars/all_used_car_search.html

And this site offers links to lots of MB dealers but also independents and gives a good guide to asking prices.
http://www.used-mercedescars.co.uk

You can buy management cars etc direct from Mercedes and you can usually hagglea fair wack off their asking prices if no part ex is involved: -
http://www.directmercedes.co.uk

Best guide to prices is the trade's bible. Type in details of any car you think you are homing in on and it gives you private sale and dealer prices, part ex prices etc all for £2-95p
http://www.glass.co.uk

You can do a basic check with Glass's for free via Vauxhall's website http://www.vauxhall.co.uk/vx/finance/valueyourcar.do
but this will only give you part ex prices. Add 15 to 20% for dealers asking prices (at least a grand of these asking prices is to help give 'good' part ex prices.

 

[hawk20]

There is what looks like a tasty one in Poole on the MB search engine. Good spec, 2004, sensible miles and asking £25K or so. Haggle a couple off that. Nice buy?
http://www.mercedes-benz.motortrak....2877772,12835950,12910289,12899367&vidindex=2

When you think that is a £70k plus car, barely 3 years old selling from a Main dealer with a twelve month guarantee, asking only about one third of what it cost. Big petrol engined cars offer superb value.

 

[conington]

Value

I have a 52 plate S500 but with 72,000 miles on the clock !!!!! Great car, silky smooth ride, comfortable and great to look at. I've had no major problems at all.

I would like to point out that you can, these days, have difficulty selling these cars on especially via dealers. They go on about the size of the engine and that the market for these cars is not very liquid (usual bull but with the car tax hikes and "environment issues" currently out there this is probably getting near to the truth) - bottom line, personally, is that if you are going to keep it - go for it - if you're worried about further depreciation think twice.

Great car, great mileage. I'd go for it.

 

[M6AJJ]

Very well specced car, clean &tidy with full main dealer history. Very low mileage. All sounds and looks good.

Negotiate on the price as these cars are in a very limited market and buyers will not be running in to them every day. £21,000 is a lot of money for them to have tied up in stock, offer £19,000.

They probably are offering a 3 month warranty, or a 1 year third party warranty which excludes all the things that you would want covering. Look carefully at this as they are very expensive to repair. Particularly the air suspension.

Hope this helps.

 

[eGuru]

There is what looks like a tasty one in Poole on the MB search engine. Good spec, 2004, sensible miles and asking £25K or so. Haggle a couple off that. Nice buy?
http://www.mercedes-benz.motortrak....2877772,12835950,12910289,12899367&vidindex=2

When you think that is a £70k plus car, barely 3 years old selling from a Main dealer with a twelve month guarantee, asking only about one third of what it cost. Big petrol engined cars offer superb value.

Hawk20
Thanks for the link and all the info. The car in Poole looks good.
Jay

 

[eGuru]

Whoops!

Very well specced car, clean &tidy with full main dealer history. Very low mileage. All sounds and looks good.

Negotiate on the price as these cars are in a very limited market and buyers will not be running in to them every day. £21,000 is a lot of money for them to have tied up in stock, offer £19,000.

They probably are offering a 3 month warranty, or a 1 year third party warranty which excludes all the things that you would want covering. Look carefully at this as they are very expensive to repair. Particularly the air suspension.

Hope this helps.

M6AJJ

Did not realise there was another S500 on the same page. The one my mate is looking at is slightly more at £24k about middle of page.

Thanks
Jay

 

[hawk20]

I would like to point out that you can, these days, have difficulty selling these cars on, especially via dealers. They go on about the size of the engine and that the market for these cars is not very liquid .

Yes true. And it is not just the price of petrol. People worry about the extra vehicle excise duty (tax disc) on Band G cars and strong rumours that more taxes on gas guzzlers will be coming. BUT what a lot of people don't realise is that cars registered before March 23rd 2006 are excluded from all this and are classified as Band F the same as many quite small 2 litre cars. Band G is ONLY for cars registered after March 2006. So secondhand is now the sensible way to have the pleasure of the V8 burble.

If not. Try the 320cdi S class. You just might be as pleasantly surprised as I was and even brand new ones are only Band F.

 

[conington]

Tax - expalined

Thanks for that - I have just renewed my tax for 1 year and was pleasently surprised that it was £205 (thought I was just lucky and DVLA had made a mistake !!)- I thought it was to be £300 this year and up to £400 next year !!! I didn't realise it would not hit the top band.

All of the "green stuff" and tax aside these are great cars and should not be ignored at the second hand prices they are offered at.

 

[hawk20]

Hope eGuru will keep us posted on what his friend finally decides. Nice to hear the ending if possible.

 

[eGuru]

Hawk20, I have already talked to my friend regarding all the useful advice. He is hoping to make a decision in the next week.
Will keep you posted.
Cheers, Jay

 

[hawk20]

Hawk20, I have already talked to my friend regarding all the useful advice. He is hoping to make a decision in the next week.
Will keep you posted.
Cheers, Jay

Fine. Nice if you can.

 

[eGuru]

Update

Hope eGuru will keep us posted on what his friend finally decides. Nice to hear the ending if possible.

Hawk20
Friend found 2004 facelift S430 at a garage in Essex. Car was advertised as "one previous owner". After a test drive he put down a £1000 deposit with a view to collecting the car in a week. In the meantime my friend carried out HPi check on the car and it showed 3 previous owners. He contacted the garage due to concerns about a 3 year old car with 30k miles having had 4 owners.
Cut a long story short, friend asked garage for his deposit back because he felt that he had been misled. Garage is refusing to refund deposit and matter will now be dealt with by small claims court

 

[hawk20]

Thanks for keeping us posted. Suggest to your friend he buys from a Mercedes dealer or from MBDirect. You get a proper guarantee and usually the good ones are with dealers. Insist on full MBSH. It is an expensive and complicated car and needs properly looking after.