How much is car my car worth please

[jazzenator]

Hi
I would like to sell my car.
It is a 2004 04 E320 CDI avantgarde. done 53000 miles
Full leather, Full mercedes service history.
Panoramic Sun roof
Semi electric seats
UV deflecting glasses
Xenon lights
Nokia telephone prewiring
12 months Tax
12 months MOT
4 new tyres 3 weeks ago
Rear brakes changed
Recent Cat C full service including transmission oil change
Aircon Service

How much would it be worth if I want to part ex it.

Thanks

 

[100%Bitch]

Try here: -

http://www.parkers.co.uk/cars/used-prices/

 

[jazzenator]

Hi

Tried that. Glass says £15,501 as it is in perfect condition.
I am offered £12ooo as the best price from a main dealer, stating that it wasn't a buyers market etc. and this is the best price he can get on asking around.
Therefore I was wondering what traders actually thought the price was.

 

[100%Bitch]

Well, I was offered £9.5 and £10K from dealers and £14K from another "normal" car sales place. Keep trying, as they said, it's a buyers market and if they want to sell to you they need to up their offer.

 

[st4]

Try

http://www.networkq.co.uk/nq/buyers/valuecar.do

Free and not that far off in past experience.

 

[Rory]

I would like to sell my car.

.......

How much would it be worth if I want to part ex it.

The prices you've been offered are, unfortunately, probably about right at the moment. I read elsewhere that some dealers have stopped buying cars altogether at the moment.


P/x price is variable, depending on what you're p/xing against.

If it was a fully loaded R or GL class that the dealer has sitting in stock, then you'd should get a very good price.

 

[Xtractorfan]

You have to remember that the car trade in general is in the doldrums and due to other unsure factors..the upcoming increase in VED (car Tax) dealers are expecting a big drop in sales of the larger cars, so trade in prices are gonna be on the floor, and in most cases trade ins are underwritten by trade buyers who set the prices.. if you can sell privately ...

 

[jberks]

in my experience there is trade in and there is actual value. The 2 are almost never related. What they offer you may be derisory (if yours is only worth that I'm down to running mine into the ground!), but if they are also offering a great deal on the new one it may average out. I was offered vastly different figures for my last car but this was generally reflected in the price of the new one, so I took bugger all for it and paid bugger all for the new one. If i'd taken the better offer it would still have cost me the same.

Remember if your car is worth £15k, then the dealer will not get more than that for it. For this he needs to prep it, keep it in stock (pay the interest), provide a warranty and a decent discount when the new buyer negotiates and - make a profit. With this in mine, £3k doesn't go that far.

All that said, a mint 320cdi is still very desireable so, whilst it may take a while and be a pain to do, a private sale may be the way to go.

 

[tromppost]

Try

http://www.networkq.co.uk/nq/buyers/valuecar.do

Free and not that far off in past experience.

That a good site, Thanks.

 

[euclidb2]

Try

http://www.networkq.co.uk/nq/buyers/valuecar.do

Free and not that far off in past experience.

this gives part exchange prices,try this one for non p/exchange.......be prepared for a shock!!!!!!!!

1. http://www.webuyanycar.com/Default.aspx

..

 

[Phil D]

It's not a good time to be selling a car I'm afraid.
I sold mine to a main dealer almost 3 months ago - well below what Glasses said was a private sale valuation, but I just wanted the job done.
It was a C, not E, not brilliant spec but same mileage & full dealer history & A1 condition.
Initially they marked it up by just over £2k, which I didn't think was too bad as they'd have to put a warranty on it etc.
I've been checking their website to see if it sold & today I saw it was still there with a "final reduction - £450 more than they paid me!
Boy am I pleased I didn't get greedy.
Not what you want to hear, but it's a sign of the times.

 

[PeterCLK]

Tried mine on both and it's worth about 9 - 10k. Bought new Three and a half years ago list price 43.2k but got 5.5k discount = 37.7k. So it's lost 27k - over 70% = 20% p.a. approx. I'll keep it until service plus runs out by which time it will be worth £5k if I'm lucky.
I'll then be tempted to keep it longer.

 

[Rory]

Tried mine on both and it's worth about 9 - 10k. Bought new Three and a half years ago list price 43.2k but got 5.5k discount = 37.7k. So it's lost 27k - over 70% = 20% p.a. approx. I'll keep it until service plus runs out by which time it will be worth £5k if I'm lucky.

I've said this before, but there is something seriously screwed about the UK car market. We have high new prices (mitigated a little in your case by a hefty discount) but stupidly low used prices, so we get hit both ends and the cost of ownership is immense.

Do Mercedes (and others, of course) seriously expect people to cheerfully hose £27K (after tax, of course) down the drain every 3 and a bit years? There can't be many people who would be willing to keep that up, even if they could afford to.

 

[hawk20]

It's not that bad Rory. Jazzenators car is listed in glass's guide at up to 15k in excellent condition and it is 4 years old. As I have shown before most popular Mercedes have a residual at 3 years old of over 40% and many achieve 50% of the original list price (before adding extras). This is good by the standards of almost any other make you can choose. And I have seen no firm evidence that the situation is any different in Europe (certainly not in France or Germany, nor in the USA).

It is supply and demand. Many would like a new car. And the deals are often good. And the finance packages too. Go to the MB website today and the E class is being offered at an APR of only 4.2% (an amazing rate), over three years, with a discount of around 10% off list price as well, AND a guaranteed residual of around 50% of the discounted price you pay. Very appealing to many. But discounts on new cars affect residuals on secondhand ones.

Before the recent huge rise in oil prices, Jazzenator would have got the guide price if he had pressed a few dealers. But as the Press have said second hand prices have suddenly dropped up to 25% due to high fuel costs, high food costs, and gathering gloom about recession.

In additiion, while dealers go on charging around £100 per hour for labour, many are put off buying large expensive, complex cars that may go wrong and may cost a packet to fix.

And then there is the new model problem. So many people are so fashion conscious that a new model clobbers residuals. And everyone knows the new E class is now just around the corner. It doesn't help.

My solution, recently, has been to choose to buy on a PCP as that way you get a guaranteed residual and do not have to worry about depreciation. But that is another thread.


For Jazzenator, if you go to the Vauxhall website, under the OWNERS section it has Value your Car and they give you a free Glass’s Guide valuation.

Better still go to Glass’s Guide website and you can put in all the extras and get a full valuation with part ex price, private sale price, dealer price etc. Take this valuation to the dealer and I have found it helps when you haggle. Extras do have value and Glass’s guide shows that. But your problem is that dealers are scared to buy big engined cars at the moment. And likely you will be offered well below the guide price.

House prices are falling, the economy is slowing rapidly, the stock market (FTSE index) is more than 20% below where it was nearly a decade ago in the summer of 1999 (and that is before you allow for inflation), while household bills are rocketing. Small wonder this is not a good time to sell your car.

To keep depreciation at sensible levels it seem to me you must either
a) Buy on a PCP if there is a good deal with a good guaranteed residual
b) Buy a popular model the secondhand market likes
c) Avoid large petrol engines
d) stay away from the toy cupboard (most extras add depressingly little to residuals)
e) avoid buying a model if it means your likely selling date will coincide with the new model
f) by and large smaller and cheaper means less depreciation.
g) if you want to buy big, just accept the need to keep it longer. Any car kept for 10 years will lose less than 10% in value per year -on average. But if kept only for the first 3 years it will almost certainly lose up to 20% per year.

 

[PeterCLK]

Hawk20 makes some good points. I always knew my 320 petrol would depreciate a lot but it's what I want & I like it a lot. I was just showing how much current second hand values are being hit. I'll keep mine 6 years (to the end of service plus) - probably longer - and I estimate it will have cost £5.5k p.a. in depreciation so it's not that bad. My previous Audi's always seemed to cost that much too.

 

[Rory]

It's not that bad Rory. Jazzenators car is listed in glass's guide at up to 15k in excellent condition and it is 4 years old.

Glass's guide may well say Jazzenators car is worth £15K, but that's not very useful to him when in the real world his best offer is £12K.

And I have seen no firm evidence that the situation is any different in Europe (certainly not in France or Germany, nor in the USA).

Clearly it's not a Mercedes specific issue, but colleagues based in Europe have remarked to me how used car prices are very low in the UK.
On HonestJohn the other day a guy was looking for a used car for his parents who have retired to France - he said it was much cheaper to buy in the UK and ship it over to them.
There was another thread from a guy working in Germany who was astonished by the price of used Passsats over there.

US second-hand prices are the hardest to fathom, especially as their cars are cheaper new. The MB range is much more limited there - few diesels and obviously no 4cyl engines at all - but you can look at the used prices at US MB dealers and at 3yrs they're about the same as our equivalent models, yet the cars are at least 25% cheaper (after allowing for tax differences) when new. Hence the incredibly low personal leasing costs available in the US. Of course, what skews the used comparison somewhat is the models they have (big engines) are generally the worst depreciators here.


Company car sales are still pretty huge in the UK at about half the new car market. Personally, I'm absolutely convinced that the 6 monthly registration letter change is what drives private sales here, and also helps to undermine used values, as many people in the UK seem very sensitive to vehicle age.

It is supply and demand. Many would like a new car. And the deals are often good. And the finance packages too. Go to the MB website today and the E class is being offered at an APR of only 4.2% (an amazing rate), over three years, with a discount of around 10% off list price as well, AND a guaranteed residual of around 50% of the discounted price you pay. Very appealing to many.

Actually, "very appealing to many" has to be a contradiction otherwise the deal wouldn't exist (or there would be queues outside the showrooms to snap it up).

This one of my beefs against PCPs in the UK - we're being conditioned by people who tell us what great vaue MB's PCP deals can be when in reality the deal only looks good because the reference point is the unsupportably high list price. Of course they can offer an "amazing rate" on the APR and discounts too - because as you know perfectly well, the car will be transferred to MB Finance at anything up to 40% less than list price.

 

[hawk20]

Actually, "very appealing to many" has to be a contradiction otherwise the deal wouldn't exist (or there would be queues outside the showrooms to snap it up).

This one of my beefs against PCPs in the UK - we're being conditioned by people who tell us what great vaue MB's PCP deals can be when in reality the deal only looks good because the reference point is the unsupportably high list price. Of course they can offer an "amazing rate" on the APR and discounts too - because as you know perfectly well, the car will be transferred to MB Finance at anything up to 40% less than list price.

1. Very appealing to many is not a contradiction. There are many things on the market that are very appealing to many. And why not? So long as they plan to supply about as many as want the deal, there will be no queues.
2. You live in a world where in your mind car makers make vast profits. The reality is that many make losses, some make modest profits and very few indeed make large profits. It is a very competitive game.

But the point is not whether or not they 'can afford' to offer good deals on new cars. The fact is that they do and this inevitably affects the demand for older cars. As does the high labour rate that dealers charge to do repairs. That is the point I was making.

 

[Rory]

It is a very competitive game.

Not really in the UK - it's a pretty limited and static market, and even then it's split into two halves.

There are effectively two sets of pricing - one for the fleet market and one for retail. The retail prices need to be held up otherwise the fleet residuals suffer.

But the point is not whether or not they 'can afford' to offer good deals on new cars. The fact is that they do and this inevitably affects the demand for older cars.

I take issue with the word "good". Manufacturers offer deals from time to time and if the deal happens to align with the customer's needs then all is good. A few people will take up those deals on run-out models. But not "many".

 

[hawk20]

CAR PROFITS
Porsche makes an astounding £14,173 average profit on every car it sells, according to a study carried out by B&D Forecast and printed in German newspaper Welt am Sonntag. The study shows that Porsche's per-car profits dwarf those of any other major manufacturer. BMW, for example, earns £1,619 average profit per car; although it should be remembered that BMW manufactures in much higher volumes than Porsche. Audi nets a comparatively small £800 profit per car, whilst very high-volume manufacturers like Volkswagen and Chrysler make £202 and £455 respectively.

 

[Rory]

I'm sure US buyers of German brands are delighted that European customers are subsidising their new cars.