How much did you pay? Secret? Or not?

[wxmclk]

I paid £15900 for my CLK 280 in February 2009 (07 plate)

I really don't mind sharing this information, but doubt anyone is really that interested either to be honest.

 

[iscaboy]

I paid £15900 for my CLK 280 in February 2009 (07 plate)

I really don't mind sharing this information, but doubt anyone is really that interested either to be honest.

Actually it is interesting, I'm already seeing an interesting statistical distribution with three peaks, minute sample, but even so.

 

[MOCAŠ]

This is one of those subjects that I keep thinking of, and then keep forgetting, why do some people keep a secret of what they paid? Embarrassed? Hoping to ask double when they sell? What?

A few people have come close on this one, but the real reason is that – depending on how you were brought up – it’s considered vulgar to discuss how much you paid for things. Upbringing is significant, because this is largely a British middle class foible, so won’t necessarily apply to everyone, although the upper-working classes often tend to ape middle-class mores in the pursuit of "betterment", without necessarily understanding the reasoning behind them.

Why is it considered vulgar? Well, we sometimes talk about someone knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing, and that sums it up quite well. If you boil something down to pounds, shillings and pence, you risk overlooking its intrinsic value, which is often quite different to its monetary value. For instance, the price of a bottle of fine wine may fluctuate quite a bit based on such vagaries as exchange rates, supply/demand, popularity and general market conditions, but none of this affects the quality of what’s actually in the bottle.

There is also the matter of conspicuous consumption, which tends to mark one out as an arriviste and has traditionally been frowned upon by the establishment, who favour discretion and understatement (at least in public).

There was a time when shops did not display prices on their merchandise, and some of the more traditional firms still don’t. Their clientele know what they want, and aren’t overly concerned with knowing the price up front. That’s not to say that the cost is immaterial, just that it wouldn't really factor in the purchasing decision; hence the adage “if you need to know the price, you can’t afford it.” Similarly, adverts placed by car dealers and estate agents traditionally did not reveal the price, as this would only have been discussed once they had established that you were a bona fide customer. These days, “POA” in an advert usually just means that the price is commercially sensitive for some reason.

Times have changed, and these days prices are splashed everywhere, but people who have been brought up this way are still innately reluctant to discuss how much they paid for anything, and generally find it an affront to be asked.

 

[Palmball]

I have been asked on a few occasions how much I paid for my car and people are actually surprised - they tend to think it would be more!

I really don't mind saying how much it cost nor admitting that I haven't paid for it (all) - Mercedes Benz finance has!

It cost little over £62k and like a number of people, I don't have that amount of cash to pay for the whole car. But, I did pay 20% up front and all that matters is that the monthly payments are easily within what I budget for a nice car every month.

 

[stevesey]

In 27+ years ofr driving I've never paid more than £5K for a car. Most between 2K and 4K - and have normally done 20K+ miles a year in them without issue.

It's documented on here already; so to add to the statistics - my C240 was £3995 and my Alfa £2395. Don't want lots of modern toys - ABS, Air-con, Air bags, Traction Control and Cruise are sufficient for me - although I was missing the auto-wipers today.

 

[oldcro]

A few people have come close on this one, but the real reason is that – depending on how you were brought up – it’s considered vulgar to discuss how much you paid for things. Upbringing is significant, because this is largely a British middle class foible, so won’t necessarily apply to everyone, although the upper-working classes often tend to ape middle-class mores in the pursuit of "betterment", without necessarily understanding the reasoning behind them.


The real reason is it is none of anyones business except your family's. I was brought up like many here in a working class family and would never discuss with strangers what I paid for anything. Nothing to do with it being vulgar or me trying to be classed as upper-working class.

I was also taught not to be nosy or pry into other peoples business.

 

[iscaboy]

A few people have come close on this one, but the real reason is that – depending on how you were brought up – it’s considered vulgar to discuss how much you paid for things. Upbringing is significant, because this is largely a British middle class foible, so won’t necessarily apply to everyone, although the upper-working classes often tend to ape middle-class mores in the pursuit of "betterment", without necessarily understanding the reasoning behind them.

Oh Please....

I was privately educated, ex pat, parents wore white gloves when yachting, only thing I'm lacking is blue blood.

But, this is not 1950 in the Colonies, it is 2010 in England, and we are not discussing daddy's green line Bentley, or the matched tooled Purdeys, we are discussing a fairly commonplace motor car, and a "boche" one at that...

What you are describing and trying to classify as a "middle class foible" is in fact the very thing you are decrying, namely, snobbery. "Airs and graces" is another one.

Perhaps I should have said that I paid 685 Guineas for the old Benz, what what?

What I am aware of is the fact that many people labour under the false impression that the car they drive says something about who they are, I drive a Mercedes so naturally I am superior to anyone who drives a Ford.

Still "we" Mercedes Benz drivers are in august company, Hitler (770k) , Goebbels (540k) and Bormann (320) all drove Mercedes. (see the pecking order?)

Goering, on the other hand, actually was middle class, which almost certainly had a lot to do with him driving a Horch

770k

540k

320

Horsch 853

Hilariously Horsch is Audi.

 

[MOCAŠ]

oldcro - it's good to get a working class perspective on this. I was aiming to convey why the middle classes find it vulgar to discuss money, but I wasn't suggesting they had a monopoly on discretion.

 

[iscaboy]

oldcro - it's good to get a working class perspective on this.

With that patronising attitude, any pretence you had to any breeding just flew out the window.

 

[MOCAŠ]

iscaboy – I can only speak from personal experience. I'm not trying to start a class war here, or even suggest that there's any kind of significance to fact that I (er, we) own a particular make of car.

You asked why some people are reluctant to discuss what they paid for their car, and I've given you one reason, while oldcro has given you another. Both are perfectly legitimate, but that's not to say that everyone is going to share this view.

There are other reasons why I find it quite irritating when people refer to a car (or whatever) by its value, chiefly that it tells you nothing of any interest about the car itself. The press will often refer to someone having, say, "a £15,000 car", which could be anything from a new Focus to an elderly Rolls-Royce, and in many cases the stated value will be questionable anyway. As stated, it's irksome because it completely ignores what the item in question actually is. Same goes for people who define their house by the number of bedrooms it has.

 

[iscaboy]

You are now giving two quite different answers.

1/ mind your own business.

2/ don't like dollar value because it doesn't tell you enough detail...?

You see the dichotomy here.

 

[MOCAŠ]

iscaboy – I think you've misunderstood me. My main point was that, for me, an item's intrinsic value is of far greater interest/importance than the cost. So I'd rather someone told me what they like/dislike about their car, or why they bought it, or the adventures they'd had in it, than how much they'd paid for it.

 

[wxmclk]

Actually it is interesting, I'm already seeing an interesting statistical distribution with three peaks, minute sample, but even so.

Glad to be of help. Class aside lol

 

[iscaboy]

Gad to help.

mm, seems we fall into three distinct classes.

Tightwads like me who paid £2k or less.

Middle ground who let someone else take all the depreciation, but wanted a newer car than the tightwads, and paid around £15k more or less

High ground people who paid nearly new price, which could be 30-70k depending on model and spec, who wanted the whole new car thing.

Now *that* is interesting, and that is why blokes ask questions.

Because I can also bet that we can infer average time of ownership for each of these three spikes in our very small statistical sample.

 

[oldcro]

oldcro - it's good to get a working class perspective on this. I was aiming to convey why the middle classes find it vulgar to discuss money, but I wasn't suggesting they had a monopoly on discretion.

You lost me with the statement "middle classes find it vulgar". Everyone rich or poor all over the world are individuals, and the only true statement about the middle classes are that they are middle class (whatever that means today).

 

[bpsorrel]

I fall into the "like a new car, but only want to pay ex-demo prices" group!

Most of my recent cars (which I keep for anything from 1 to 2 years, usually) have been ex-demos or pre-reg, saving me in the case of my Saab convertible £12K off new retail. I would never pay full price for a car, and certainly not over £30K! To me, a car just aint worth more than that!

 

[MOCAŠ]

You lost me with the statement "middle classes find it vulgar". Everyone rich or poor all over the world are individuals, and the only true statement about the middle classes are that they are middle class (whatever that means today).

You're right, these terms are more-or-less redundant today in our increasingly classless society. However, they did once have a meaning, and an associated mindset/ethos, and that's what I was referring to. Any attempt at categorisation is inevitably going to involve some degree of generalisation too, but that's not to discount our capacity for individual thought.

Certainly wasn't intending to patronise or offend in any way, just found it genuinely interesting how your distaste for discussing money (and yes, I appreciate that's exactly what we're doing!) had a separate basis to mine.

 

[ian11]

I think one of the reasons I find so much trouble with openly discussing money is that, having a fair degree of knowledge about cars, all the candour about the price opens pandoras box.

For example, if you tell me you bought an all-boxes-ticked GL500 (£80kish?), my mind immediately flashes "Jesus! He just paid £320 for a DAB tuner! For something that should be free! Haha £820 for a TV tuner! They're worth about £10! You can get a telly for that!"

All very tasteless...none of my business...but I didn't ask to be told the price of your car....I was quite happy to sit in ignorance and just "enjoy" the spec. Keeping the $$ out of the conversation just allows everything to remain impersonal. Fine on this site though...as I said earlier , that is the basic point of these forums.

(and yes, I have seen someone in a pub cornered by a friend about "Why did you pay £300 for an ipod connection? Bascially a headphone jack...blah blah"

 

[219]

Over the course of my life I have paid varying amounts for different cars , and have even been GIVEN a couple for FREE ! This will be far from every car I've had , but here . from memory , is a potted history of my cars .........

After I passed my driving test at age 17 , my dad gave me his old W115 220/8 , which by then was about six years old but with 20K showing on the clock ( second time round ) - he replaced it with a W123 200 and the difference between trading the 220 in and the no trade in discount was only something like £300 so he was happier for me to have it than start driving a 'banger' .

I ran that car for about four years until it was written off in a bad smash involving a car which came round a bend on the wrong side of the road and hit me head on - I'm convinced that if I were driving a lesser car I wouldn't be here today , so another Mercedes it had to be .

A combination of insurance payout , my savings and the last few hundred from my dad saw me sitting in a W114 280E which had been sitting on the forecourt of a local Ford dealer for about a year with a sticker price of £5200 , but my dad's hard business haggling skills brought the final figure down close to half that amount ! This was possibly the second most expensive car I have bought in my life . I kept that car for more than 10 years and took the mileage from 48K to around 272K .

The first car I bought entirely with my own money , back in 1982 , was the Ponton which I still have to this day , so 28 years and counting . When I heard from a neighbour that an old lady a few streets away was selling 'an old Mercedes' which had been her husband's , I had to go and look . This was a very grand house with a long drive , a carport at the side and a large double garage . Under the carport at the side of the house was a Daimler Majestic saloon and a Daimler Limousine ( I briefly contemplated buying the limo as I envisaged it being a very 'cool' car to go cruising around in the evenings with all my mates to have a laugh in ) but then I saw the Mercedes lying in the open in the back garden and knew I had to have it - even though it wasn't running at the time ( apparently the husband had bought it , parked it there and never done anything with it ) . I was also shown hubby's favourite car , which was kept under dust sheets in the garage : a 1938 Packard 8 , which looked like something out of a gangster movie with running boards , spare wheel mounted to the side of the bonnet and a huge chrome contraption on the back of the saloon body which could be flipped down to attach a 'trunk' . When we came to discussing the price of the Mercedes I asked how much she wanted - the reply was " £100 - or is that too much ? " - by the time I managed to pick my jaw up off the ground all I could bring myself to say was something like " No , that's fine " and tried not to break into a run on my way to the bank until I was round the corner out of sight !

I have subsequently had cheaper cars too : I can remember paying £45 for a Triumph Herald which I bought for a mate who wanted it but didn't have the money at the time ; I kept it for him for a couple of months but as he was never able to come up with the money , I ended up running it myself for a while then scrapped it when the MOT ran out and it became clear it needed a lot of welding to the chassis to pass another . Other cheap cars have included a Mini , a Mk III Cortina Estate , a Hillman Minx IIIC and a Morris 1000 , all of which were bought for less than £100 ( and a couple subsequently sold on for considerably more ! ) . I also had a W116 280SE , bought for £200 after a butcher friend who had it from new and had driven it to the moon and back was finished with it - I ran it for a few months but it really was clapped out , using almost as much oil as petrol - I still got £300 back for it selling it for 'spares or repairs' !

After the 280E died from terminal rust underneath , I ran the Ponton as my main car for about 10 years until it too was starting to need work and I put it to one side intending to restore it . At that point I needed another reliable car and , as I had liked my dad's W123 ( which had been sold after my dad died as my mum had by then also given up driving ) I decided to look for one and ended up with a 280TE which at £2500 was the same amount as I had paid years before for the 280E but less now in real terms .

I ran that car for a few years then , when I hit the big 4-0 , decided to splash out and treat myself and bought a three year old W124 300TE which at £14 K was as much as I'd spent on my first house ! Yes , it was very nice and I kept it for about six or seven years taking it to just shy of 200K , but really it was no better than any of the cheaper cars I'd had . Because of that I have decided never to spend large amounts on cars ever again . Actually , I tend to spend more on hi-fi , photo and video equipment than I do on cars ( although , with those too I tend to sniff around and hunt out bargains ) .

I also had a W123 280CE , bought from a colleague for £1200 , ran for a while and sold on for £1800 ( after haggling down from my £2K asking price ) , what is this depreciation thing people keep talking about ?

When the W124 suffered a catastrophic failure of the ASD diff and a used replacement was not forthcoming , I decided to buy a cheap car to tide me over : I saw a 190E parked outside a house nearby with a for sale sticker on the window - enquiring within , I soon became the owner for the princely sum of £300 . Intended purely as a stopgap , I was hugely impressed with the quality of that 190 for what it had cost , it ran like a sewing machine and I kept it for three years - I had to fit a new front wing , headlamp and indicator to fix some accident damage which was there when I bought the car - total cost about £50 , although I had to visit a few breakers until I found a wing in Diamond Blue to bolt straight on ( Mercedes paint colours are pretty consistent and it matched perfectly ) .

During a visit to a scrapyard looking for parts for the 190 , I came across the 300TE-24 'just in' and complete , and was able to buy it still with V5 for £750 - this turned out to be a one owner car with FSH and astronomical mileage of over 400K , but fully maintained at MB Glasgow up to a couple of months before when it had been traded in for a new SL , the garage had simply put it out to auction , where the scrap dealer had bought it to break and I was very lucky to walk in at the right time . That car did me well for about 18 months until it was written off in my drive . Luckily , I still had the 190 so went back to that , until I saw a 190 2.6 for sale in the Gazette and bought that one for £500 . I ran that happily for over a year , until we had a new addition to our family and I needed something bigger . Somewhere in there , I was also offered a Fintail 220S , which I snapped up for £700 , not really checking it out properly because I knew the seller and because it was an impulse buy due to the rarity of the model and nostalgia due to having grown up with one as the family car during the 1960's - that car turned out to be the worst buy of my life ( apart from the Austin Allegro I had briefly in the 70's ) as it turned out to have rust EVERYWHERE there had been metal - in the end I broke it and only recovered about half what I'd paid .

With the Fintail coming in , I had to get rid of the 190 , which I had been keeping for my daughter's 21st , but since she didn't want it I ended up giving it to someone I knew who was hard up - still running about locally to this day .

I thought about another estate car , but having had three didn't really fancy another and , besides , that was going to be just too conventional . I decided the two Mercedes models I had never owned and which might be suitable were either a G Wagen or a W126 . It did not require much research to determine that good used G Wagens were neither cheap nor plentiful .

The other car I had considered was a S Class - either W126 or W140 - after speaking to a few people , I decided to go for a 126 , looked at a few and ended up with a very nice 500SEL at a cost of £1350 , I have subsequently spent about the same again on it between routine maintenance , tyres and an ABS repair for one MOT but it is still running faultlessly and I will keep it as long as it continues to do so .

The arrival of the 500 meant the 2.6 had to go , so I ended up giving it to my sister .

When the Fintail departed , I got the chance of a second W126 , which I could not resist at an asking price of £100 ... A couple of bits of welding and one brake pipe needed for MOT , should get it done soonish .

That is the story more or less up to date but I wonder what 'bargains' await me in the near future ?

 

[bigyin1]

mm, seems we fall into three distinct classes.

Tightwads like me who paid £2k or less.

Middle ground who let someone else take all the depreciation, but wanted a newer car than the tightwads, and paid around £15k more or less

High ground people who paid nearly new price, which could be 30-70k depending on model and spec, who wanted the whole new car thing.

Now *that* is interesting, and that is why blokes ask questions.

Because I can also bet that we can infer average time of ownership for each of these three spikes in our very small statistical sample.

I don't fall into these categories....

I have spent most of my adult life reading about cars and consider buying a car THE most stressful thing I can do. I took a very long long time debating what to get next when I knew i'd be getting a small windfall nearly 2 years ago (sleepless nights, lists of good vs bad....) - the end result was me spending just over £6k on a 14 year old car. So far I'm very happy with my car (even with the odd fuel gremlin) and would buy the same one again (perhaps with air con though ).

Many of my friends thought me mad to do this but as far as I was concerned it ticked the most boxes of what I need a car to do, plus many more besides.

So - 4th Category - to include someone who buys an older car for normal every day use and pays a little more for the privilage.