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The Pan Man

Active Member
Joined
Jan 5, 2010
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241
As some of you may remember early in the year I was looking for a lete model E211 with all the goodies as I do not like the E212 and its not growing on me.
Well yesterday afternoon I came across a couple of 57 and 08 cars that fittet the bill, so being upto the task of using e-mail I contacted the dealer and asked them for a "Ball park figure" as a P X. Well the cheeky git offered me £5000 for my 53 Plate E211 270CDi 106k miles F S H and every option except Full leather TV and Heated seats. Have a look on Autotrader private or trade to see one anywhere close to this price, well as far as I'm concerned his £22,000.00 car can rust away on his forecourt. Do they think we are all stupid or have so much money that it is not relevent. After 11 years of continual MB ownership this might just be the final straw. I might well be looking at other marques when I do bite the bullet. It reminds me of why MB do NOT service my car, just a bunch of money grabbers.
 
You can run a detailed vehicle valuation through CAP/Parkers etc to get a negotiating range. Unfortunately very few options actually hold much value on the secondhand market - and for this car leather, which you don't have, is one that people will look for. Average mileage for the age of car would be about 70k, so you are 36k (or 50%) over. Again the price guides will give you this precisely, but I would have thought that meant a good £2k off the price for an average miler, even though the merc will hardly show the extra miles at all.

I also wouldn't be too harsh on the dealer if he has lowballed the offer. From his perspective, if you go along to him he will not get away with offering any less than his telephone 'ball park' figure, even if it turns out that your car is an absolute dog. He's probably been bitten before on that - always easier to negotiate the price up when he sees the vehicle in the metal.

The real issue, as ever, is not what he is offering but rather the 'price to change'. How does the £22k sticker price stack up with book values? If it's good, then how about selling your car privately and just buy his car off him without PX? You may also get a better deal towards the end of September when quarterly sales targets are at stake.
 
PXW as always there will will be fors and againsts. The £22000 is right at the top of the range and even mileage adjusted the 270 should book at least £7k. If he had been there abouts we could have worked out a deal but not at £5k thats telling me there is no room for negotiation. The leather is not such an issue as people make out Yes it's nice but there are alot of A/G's out there with Half leather and then on the later models the standard was "ARTICO" Man made leather. READ PLASTIC / VIYNAL Go figure that one.
 
As PXW says its only cost to change thats important.
I would have thought you'd have no shortage of takers for your car privately.
You have to remember that the dealer is actually there to make a profit - therefore thats why you ALWAYS get significantly less trading in than private selling. You want the best for yours? Sell it.
 
The guy is always going to be very conservative in an email dialogue. The last thing he'll want to do is over estimate your cars worth, then have you wave an email in his face. Give yours a good wash and wax then go and see him in person. He'll probably get no end of emails asking for prices from all sorts of nutters and tyre kickers around the country. Its much easier to do this sort of thing in person.
 
Worth going along to get a price to change at least you get a baseline. In a straight cash sale I knocked a 2009 W211 down from £20,900 on the sticker to £19,500. Plus for your car the price is what they'll get at auction and at the moment traders are struggling to shift larger used cars.
 
HR 17 No need to wash and wax it's always a shiner.
RATZ. "Struggling to to move larger used cars" Adjust the sticker prices accordingly. Simples.
PS I am going tyo look at a couple at another dealer on Monday, they are similar in spec and marginly cheaper on the screen so let's see what the offer is in a face to face.
 
I've bought 5 cars from Mercedes Direct and always got a sensible P/X prices each time. Maybe it is a case of managing expectations, but the two examples which stand out were a year old Golf which I got £2K more for in P/X than I paid 2 weeks previously (!) and the fact that I got £1.5K more for my S Class last year than the normal dealers would offer.
Have you looked on their site?:dk:
 
I wouldn't rule out driving a Mercedes because a dealer didn't give you a price you liked. I'd say £5k is a little low, but not a million miles out, you'd be lucky to see £7k for it.

However that doesn't detract from the fact you still have a nice car thats got plenty of life left in it, and you are probably cheaper to run it for longer then fork out for a new motor as and when you need/really want one. Other car dealers will give you the same crap price.
 
*** I am informed trhat the mileage adjusted book for PX is £6.8K. Couple to that the margin in the forecourt car it's a mickey take. Yes you are spot on about my car and the virtue of keeping it, but just sometimes you get that itch that needs scratching. I'm due a service in a couple of weeks and IF I have not done a deal anywhere before that I will rest till Jan or Feb when it gets MOT and Tax and then see who has what. Would it make £8.5K Private sale?
 
Be cautious about book. It does not seem to mean a great deal anymore. Dealers/Traders are more concerned about what they can get for the car.

At £8.5K you will be competing with similar age and spec E320. (In fact I wish I had not looked as they are starting from £7k). At £8.5k you are competing with similar age and spec trader (so with some warranty) E320.

I can see where the dealer was coming from with your car, especially as your mileage is probably too high for them to retail, so they will be passing it on to trade.
 
Your never going to get a decent offer on a trade-in via email (unless its very sought after).

At the end of the day he has offered 2k under book for a high mileage car that he hasn't seen, that has no leather and is due a service.

Your obviously sure what the car is worth so i would def go down the private sale route and then play hard ball once you've got the cash in hand.

Good luck
 
Perhaps the dealer sensed in your discussions with him your complete disdain for anyone who you think isn't giving you a bargain and showing due respect to your current car and accordingly he decided he didn't fancy dealing with you? After all, you have had some helpful replies in this thread on why the deal may be the way you think it should be and you have pretty much shot them all down.

Just a thought....
 
So prprandall51 it seems that you are implying the doing you homework is a bad thing. My original e mail was very basic to the dealer. "Please give me a ball park figure for a PX against this car. I am very interested", Thanks in advance. how can that come across as offensive? In any way shape or form.
 
Having a look on eBay for closed cars where they were won, it would appear that private cars of similar spec go for 6K-7K (again, sold privately - not by a dealer)
 
Well, having looked around I reckon the most you can reasonably expect to get as a PX would be around £5.5k. In terms of retail, you might well find a buyer at £6495, but there are 04 and 05 cars around for the figure you believe your car to be worth, and the cars that are the same age as yours at that price are estates, with nice specs. It's always a tough pill to swallow when you discover your pride and joy is worth less than you thought.
 
So prprandall51 it seems that you are implying the doing you homework is a bad thing. My original e mail was very basic to the dealer. "Please give me a ball park figure for a PX against this car. I am very interested", Thanks in advance. how can that come across as offensive? In any way shape or form.

I have tried this approach, and in my experience you were lucky to get any reply from a dealer, mine were few and far between.

I think the only thing you can do to be taken seriously is turn up in person with the car. It's what the dealers know and they seem very reluctant to move against the established way of selling.
 
So prprandall51 it seems that you are implying the doing you homework is a bad thing. My original e mail was very basic to the dealer. "Please give me a ball park figure for a PX against this car. I am very interested", Thanks in advance. how can that come across as offensive? In any way shape or form.

At no point have I said that you were offensive to the dealer, I am sure you weren't. However, you asked the dealer to give you a price for your car sight unseen and he did so and you now appear to be very annoyed at the value the dealer provided. The purchase and sale of cars is a free market; the dealer is not obliged to buy your car, to offer you what you think it is worth if he does buy it, or to sell you his car at a price that you find attractive. If you don't like what is on the table, move on rather than post here about how you have been unfairly treated.
 
You have misunderstood I did not ask the dealer for a price I asked for a ball park figure they are no way the same thing a ball park means some movement by either party a price suggests that it is already agreed. Well I have 1 more iron in the fire that may or may not work out, just have to wait and see. My biggest problem is I do no like the W212 and finding a very late W211 with all the option boxes ticked is proving very difficult and I do fully understand that the longer I keep mine the less it will be worth, so at some point I will have to decide how much money I am prepared to throw at it to get the car I want, if I can find one.
 

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