How much to pay

[jberks]

Hi all,
Following the dealer trawl last weekend, I've had the usual calls offering me bugger all for mine and expecting me to pay rediculous amounts for the new one. It's been a while so I though I'd ask those of you that have negotiated recently whether I am off beam here or not.

They have offered me 7 for mine - bottom book but however the figures work out, that would be all they'd really pay. The rest is fiddled against the new one.
They have a nice spec E270cdi on a 54 plate and they want me to pay 28. I am working on the assumption that he paid no more than 23 for it so I am thinking that if I leave mine at 7, I should be looking to pay around 25,500 for the new one. Am I being too optomistic?

Also, I'm thinking of selling mine privately - again am I being a bit hopeful expecing someone to pay 8,500 for a very clean 68k 2000(W) E240? Autotrader prices are all over the place but there are several asking over 9k I guess even at 8k I'm a grand up!..

 

[Big Jim]

I can't be too specific because I had a different motor to part-ex, but what I found was going into the dealer with a list of prices other dealerships would give you helps enormously. Even if they are all Mercedes garages this method will work. Of course you can do it all above board and actually shop around, or you could make the figures up.

I had a 3000GT for part-ex, worth about £6-7000. Porsche offered me £1500 in part-ex for a GT2! Merc offered me £4000 in part-ex for a CLK55. When I told Porsche Mercs price they upped there offer to £5500!!! That's a big jump. I sold the car privately in the end for £6000, but I had to wait a while to get the right seller - it just depends how long you are prepared to wait.

Don't be tempted to take it to the auctions, although you might be lucky. ;-)

Good luck

Jim

 

[DC_insider]

They have offered me 7 for mine - bottom book but however the figures work out, that would be all they'd really pay. The rest is fiddled against the new one.
They have a nice spec E270cdi on a 54 plate and they want me to pay 28. I am working on the assumption that he paid no more than 23 for it so I am thinking that if I leave mine at 7, I should be looking to pay around 25,500 for the new one. Am I being too optomistic?

Yes, but not by much.

Your E240 is worth between £6-8k depending on condition so an offer of £7k seems reasonable.

I can't believe that the dealer could get an E270 for as little as £23k - I think that they have will have paid about £25k for the car and are probably looking for £26.5k.

I think that you should be able to get £8k for your E240 in a private sale.

 

[jberks]

Thanks - useful info.
I've a couple more to see but at 26.5 I could be in the ballpark.
Another one coming to see me on Saturday and I've just had a look at a 320cdi but the mileage was a fair bit more than the 270 and the spec not as good - - oh decisions decisions .....

 

[RichardM]

Yes, but not by much.

Your E240 is worth between £6-8k depending on condition so an offer of £7k seems reasonable.

I can't believe that the dealer could get an E270 for as little as £23k - I think that they have will have paid about £25k for the car and are probably looking for £26.5k.

I think that you should be able to get £8k for your E240 in a private sale.

I agree they wouldn't have got the car that cheap, it would have been at least £25K

 

[Rory]

Not sure how relevant this, but in March I bought a 54 reg C270 Estate from MB Direct in Birmingham. It was up for £27K and I got it for £23,500, including the phone cradle and Starshield (so the car appeared on the invoice at only just over £23K). I didn't have a p/x and I paid cash (although they offered a stunningly low interest rate loan). The car is pretty loaded - I reckon new *list* would have been over £33K and it had done 6000miles.

This was an ex MB management car, and I guess how much they paid for it depends on how Mercedes do their transfer accounting. Ex-MB cars in MB owned dealers could cost the dealer a lot less than you might think.

To be honest, although I'm very happy with the car and price, if I'd realised that those sort of discounts were available then I'd have looked at E-Class, but the screen prices made them look out of reach.

 

[jberks]

Well, in the end, the dealer 'told' me that they paid over 26 (screen price 29). I settled on 28 and 7 for mine, with the usual phone cradle, full tank of gas, fully serviced, new tyres etc, worth another 1k I suppose if I had to pay myself. A lot more than I wanted to spend but as far as they would go without me walking away and having looked around I decided that I wanted that specific car. I spoke to another dealer about a similar one (not as nice) and they wouldn't shift one penny from the 28 asking price as they said it was already reduced as far as they would go.
The invoice reads 27 for the car and 6 for my 240 which I guess is the reality of it, so I can congratulate myself at getting 2k off the screen price but commisserate myself for only getting 6k or bottom book for a beautifully maintained 6 year old E240. Perhaps I should have sold it privately but I didn't need the hassle.