Anyone tried buying a new Mercedes recently?

[timwood2000]

Thought I'd share my recent experience and see if anyone has any suggestions....

Trying to buy a new E300 Coupe on behalf of a friend. Having established that there are none in stock at dealers, we went before Christmas to MB Croydon. 'Hello, we'd like to buy a new E300 Coupe please'. Answer back was that they are not selling any new cars until they knew the outcome of Brexit and what if/any tariffs there would be. However, salesman found one 'in the country'. 'Great, we'll have that one then'. 'Sorry, you can't buy that either as we are not selling ANY new cars until January 2021' due to their emissions limits being reached in 2020 (???).

So, this week, Brexit done (sort of) called up MB Dartford (who are part of same group as Croydon) and after giving extensive details to the person answering the phone, was told 'a sales person will call you back in the next 24-48 hours'. Of course, no one has called me back. Seriously, cash waiting to buy a £55/60k car and no one wants to sell me one.

I find it astonishing that it is almost impossible to buy a new MB. By way of contrast, I did the same thing for another friend who wanted a Range Rover Velar. Took me less than an hour to find one, do a great deal with almost £5k of list and all wrapped up in no time at all.

It can't be that difficult to buy a new MB - is it just that dealership or anyone else experienced same level of apathy?

 

[Darrell]

Thought I'd share my recent experience and see if anyone has any suggestions....

Trying to buy a new E300 Coupe on behalf of a friend. Having established that there are none in stock at dealers, we went before Christmas to MB Croydon. 'Hello, we'd like to buy a new E300 Coupe please'. Answer back was that they are not selling any new cars until they knew the outcome of Brexit and what if/any tariffs there would be. However, salesman found one 'in the country'. 'Great, we'll have that one then'. 'Sorry, you can't buy that either as we are not selling ANY new cars until January 2021' due to their emissions limits being reached in 2020 (???).

So, this week, Brexit done (sort of) called up MB Dartford (who are part of same group as Croydon) and after giving extensive details to the person answering the phone, was told 'a sales person will call you back in the next 24-48 hours'. Of course, no one has called me back. Seriously, cash waiting to buy a £55/60k car and no one wants to sell me one.

I find it astonishing that it is almost impossible to buy a new MB. By way of contrast, I did the same thing for another friend who wanted a Range Rover Velar. Took me less than an hour to find one, do a great deal with almost £5k of list and all wrapped up in no time at all.

It can't be that difficult to buy a new MB - is it just that dealership or anyone else experienced same level of apathy?

Wife’s Volvo dealership are doing as well as can be expected.

 

[DGAMG63S]

Thought I'd share my recent experience and see if anyone has any suggestions....

Trying to buy a new E300 Coupe on behalf of a friend. Having established that there are none in stock at dealers, we went before Christmas to MB Croydon. 'Hello, we'd like to buy a new E300 Coupe please'. Answer back was that they are not selling any new cars until they knew the outcome of Brexit and what if/any tariffs there would be. However, salesman found one 'in the country'. 'Great, we'll have that one then'. 'Sorry, you can't buy that either as we are not selling ANY new cars until January 2021' due to their emissions limits being reached in 2020 (???).

So, this week, Brexit done (sort of) called up MB Dartford (who are part of same group as Croydon) and after giving extensive details to the person answering the phone, was told 'a sales person will call you back in the next 24-48 hours'. Of course, no one has called me back. Seriously, cash waiting to buy a £55/60k car and no one wants to sell me one.

I find it astonishing that it is almost impossible to buy a new MB. By way of contrast, I did the same thing for another friend who wanted a Range Rover Velar. Took me less than an hour to find one, do a great deal with almost £5k of list and all wrapped up in no time at all.

It can't be that difficult to buy a new MB - is it just that dealership or anyone else experienced same level of apathy?

Got the same response on emissions from a dealer (not the same group) when talking about a new GLE in December. Also, told by the same sales person that MB had pulled all finance support on the cars before the end of 2020 (to stun demand on these specific cars?) but that would be reinstated sometime in 2021. Odd.

 

[Fady]

Emission limits? What does that actually mean - is it a collective figure for all vehicles sold?

And if you are in the business of selling cars, why would you look to supress demand?!

 

[DGAMG63S]

Emission limits? What does that actually mean - is it a collective figure for all vehicles sold?

And if you are in the business of selling cars, why would you look to supress demand?!

Better brains than mine will know more about this, so happy to be corrected/ educated, but I think it's to do with the total emissions target of each manufacturer (it varies) under EU regs and how many of a particular car they actually sell. If the corporate average is, say, 100gm/km of CO2 and they're selling a product mix of big SUV's or AMG's that takes them over this average they are penalised financially.

Maybe it's why the EQC was moved to 0% interest on PCP towards the end of the year? It helps the average.

 

[GP801]

Wife’s Volvo dealership are doing as well as can be expected.

Our daughter recently bought new a Volvo XC40. She knew which model she wanted including options and also from Volvo's stocklist on the web that there was a suitable spec one somewhere in the UK. She did not want to risk the possible Brexit tariff/delay of a build to order. Initial introduction to the dealer was via Carwow. The dealer in question was offering a 9.75% discount (roughly double what others were offering). The service was excellent. All negotiations conducted via e-mail. They always responded to messages within a matter of minutes. The car was obtained from whatever compound it was sitting in and handover took place 4 days later. Overall a first class service. Perhaps we were just lucky to find a good dealer but I suspect it also reflects the attitude of the importer and manufacturer too. Its not the dealer most local to her but the experience means that she will almost certainly take it to them for servicing etc.

 

[Darrell]

Our daughter recently bought new a Volvo XC40. She knew which model she wanted including options and also from Volvo's stocklist on the web that there was a suitable spec one somewhere in the UK. She did not want to risk the possible Brexit tariff/delay of a build to order. Initial introduction to the dealer was via Carwow. The dealer in question was offering a 9.75% discount (roughly double what others were offering). The service was excellent. All negotiations conducted via e-mail. They always responded to messages within a matter of minutes. The car was obtained from whatever compound it was sitting in and handover took place 4 days later. Overall a first class service. Perhaps we were just lucky to find a good dealer but I suspect it also reflects the attitude of the importer and manufacturer too. Its not the dealer most local to her but the experience means that she will almost certainly take it to them for servicing etc.

Nice to hear of a good car buying experience.

Any idea what dealer?

 

[fredfoxuk2]

Bit of a saga, but me & my wife have just bought 2 new MB's .....
We started looking at "approved used" cars back end of November, we'd planned to wait another year but saved more than expected.
We started doing test drives mid-December, A, B CLA and GLA from 3 different dealers within 80 miles of us (may have all been Sytner I think).
When we went into our local dealer to talk about what we wanted, what they had and how much we wanted to spend they weren't all that great, considering the amount of money we wanted to spend. There was a frank exchange of views and we left. Some of the points they made were valid, but my wife is a little, errr well She won't be pushed into something unless she's viewed it from every angle on her terms and they were a bit pushy. I got up to leave when they brought out the "finance guy". She would have dismembered him Oh, we've bought THREE MB's from them already over the years.
Anyway, we found the cars we wanted, they where both up north, Sunderland or Teesside the CLA was on a 69 plate with 8k the GLA 1k on a 70 plate. Both, obviously from the same franchise.
The GLA with 1k wasn't available until March! WTF? Why be advertising it? We were prepared to walk unless we could get a deal on 2 cars, so they offered brand new cars (not order and build, but in-country cars) if they could do us a deal. My wife got a great deal on the GLA, for a 70 plate new car with 19 miles on the clock for £2k more, but with 3 years free servicing which is over £1k, so sort of £1k more.
My CLA was just over £2k more than the 69 plate that had 8k on it! Brand new, got to the UK in December.
We placed the orders on the 23/12/2020. No talk about emissions, no come back next year, the only talk about Brexit was that prices may increase after it was finalised, so probably better to buy before. The only issue we had was that it was "click and collect" because of the lockdown so the normal handover and Q & A bit didn't really happen.

Just read that back to myself, more long winded that I thought it was.
TL;DR, the dealer wanted to sell us "new" cars, albeit cars that were already in country.

 

[Piff]

Had a similar experience looking for used MB.
Spoke to salesman who sold us our last new and last used main dealer MB car, dealership who had serviced our MB cars over many years. He said he was busy that day but he would look into our requirements & call back the next day. Still waiting for that return call about 3 months later.
Went to a different MB dealer to test drive a used car they had in stock. Liked the car but couldn't strike a deal as they wanted all the money for their car and would only offer abysmal trade in terms on our 2 cars. Asked them to keep our details on file and if a similar car came into their group stock I would appreciate a call. Heard nothing since in approx 2.5 months.
They suggested we sold our cars privately as they were both desirable. We did this and within 7 days of advertising (on this forum & word of mouth) made a few quid over their trade in offers, which would have been sufficient to close the deal on their car.
Tried contacting JBD via PM. 3 months later - no reply.
Maybe they have sufficient money & don't need mine

 

[Philc57]

Back in June 2020 my search for a car had been slimmed down to 2 cars both more or less the same
C class estates car A local car B 1hr 30mins away
Car A cheaper, newer by 6months black interior
Car B cost more by nearly 2K it was main dealer but had a light interior (wasn't too sure about that with where I work èct )
Decided to go local and after waiting for car to be brought to veiwing area and asking for test drive was told I could only test drive if I was going to buy it . We walked out
Phoned dealer with the other car ,asked about test drive and was told I could take the car out on my own. In a strange town I had to ask for him to come and direct he agreed ,we drove up did the deal collected 3 days later
Very good service

 

[GP801]

Nice to hear of a good car buying experience.

Any idea what dealer?

Marshalls Welwyn Garden City. She lives in Primrose Hill so not her nearest dealer but only 30-40 minutes from home. End result was a brand new R Design Pro with numerous options for less than many dealers wanted for lower spec pre reg examples.

 

[Darrell]

Marshalls Welwyn Garden City. She lives in Primrose Hill so not her nearest dealer but only 30-40 minutes from home. End result was a brand new R Design Pro with numerous options for less than many dealers wanted for lower spec pre reg examples.

Ok.
My wife works for Volvo London West Hendon so quite near Hampstead.

 

[Germgh0st]

I had something similar when I initially ordered my C43. Brand new, pretty much every factory option. Waited 7 months only to be told that it couldn't be built but they didn't know why....

 

[Yex]

I bought the wife a nearly new (5 months old) RR Evoque MHEV just before Xmas with no issues at all. We had been waiting for 2021 to order a new one and this one came up with the exact spec she wanted at c£8,000 under the configurator price so one call, a quick unaccompanied test drive whilst they inspected the old Evoque and a deal was done. All paperwork sorted via email and car collected the next weekend. Utterly smooth and easy to do so I just don't understand why other manufacturers aren't selling cars where they have willing customers.

 

[Microbe99]

Ah so there's problems with getting a new MB car at present. That would explain why I can't get a build date for a new CLA35 SB from my dealer at the moment.
It may also explain why there are so few nearly new ones about too.
Hmm may have to rethink my plans

 

[DGAMG63S]

Ah so there's problems with getting a new MB car at present. That would explain why I can't get a build date for a new CLA35 SB from my dealer at the moment.
It may also explain why there are so few nearly new ones about too.
Hmm may have to rethink my plans

Anecdotally I heard through my usual dealer that Mercedes had tightened up supply to the UK market pre-Brexit to limit exposure and that available specs on cars kept shifting (i.e. what would actually be offered to the UK market for ordering) plus MB UK's restrictons on spec offering were all playing their part. I assume COVID related disruption through last year is also an issue. It's one dealer's view but the MB supply is really variable at the moment, IMO.

 

[NickGLE350DE]

Coming back to MB after a disastrous run with LR - rejected my Discovery Sport R Dynamic HSE 240 - took 14 months to get agreement but that was as much about furlough than anything else - got 95% of money back incl comp, so car was cheap to run for 14 months >).

I ordered a GLE 350 DE two weeks ago, couldn't be simpler. This was Drive the Deal, who put me in contact with a dealer - build slot confirmed and all paperwork done in 2 days and great discount. I got my E220 this same way and the experience was very efficient and courteous.
However, re spec, it is annoying that options is very limited - I would prefer a non black interior and be able to add HUD even with Premium Plus, but you can't have that unless its a GLE 53 or a GLE 350 DE coupe. That said, should be an OEM aftermarket option soon.
Brexit has limited choice, but buying is easy enough now.

 

[C240Sport97]

However, re spec, it is annoying that options is very limited - I would prefer a non black interior and be able to add HUD even with Premium Plus, but you can't have that unless its a GLE 53 or a GLE 350 DE coupe. That said, should be an OEM aftermarket option soon.
Brexit has limited choice, but buying is easy enough now.

GLE option choice was just as limited before Brexit

 

[grober]

The GLE is built in the USA not Europe?

 

[Nickke250]

GLE option choice was just as limited before Brexit

OK. Seems odd that they would limit simple options like HUD or upholstery colours.