Should I be wary of buying this E220 CDI Estate?

[macru]

Have put down a deposit on a 2009 E220 CDI Estate. Has 2 owners - the first is
Daimler Fleet Management UK Ltd, C/O ERAC Ltd, PO Box ** Aldershot.

I have worked out that ERAC is Enterprise Rent A Car, but not sure exactly who Daimler Fleet Mgmt are - I cannot find a UK address or contact no for them.

Also feel wary after reading this from the Telegraph:-

Used-car buyers unwittingly bought ex-rental vehicles - Telegraph

So just wondering if it's a Fleet car with one driver or a rental car with many. But maybe that doesn't matter?

The second owner only had the car for 6 months.

It looks in very good condition - the mileage is 17,000 and I have been told by the non MB dealership and MB, who took it in after the Fleet ownership, that it hasn't required a service in that time.

The service indicator shows the next service is due in 12,000 miles.

29,000 miles without a service??? Is that possible?

Any thoughts or advice would be gratefully received.

Thanks

 

[Dieselman]

Daimler Fleet Management are the Mercedes Leasing company, Enterprise the Lesee, so the car could either have been a daily rental or a contract rental to another company.

 

[Colin_b]

Check the service history. It doesn't sound right

 

[Monkeylegend]

I thought Mercedes reduced service intervals to 15k miles or every 12 months sometime in 2009 according to my main dealer.

My 220 cdi is on variable service intervals and it asks for a service about every 18k miles and most of my driving is motorways.

 

[gIzzE]

the mileage is 17,000 and I have been told by the non MB dealership and MB, who took it in after the Fleet ownership, that it hasn't required a service in that time.

The service indicator shows the next service is due in 12,000 miles.

Forget the rest of it, that alone would have me walking.

It has probably just been reset from the dash.

It is due a service from 15k miles or 2 years.

 

[merino]

ERAC and Daimler Fleet MNgement

It looks in very good condition - the mileage is 17,000 and I have been told by the non MB dealership and MB, who took it in after the Fleet ownership, that it hasn't required a service in that time.

The service indicator shows the next service is due in 12,000 miles.

29,000 miles without a service??? Is that possible?

Any thoughts or advice would be gratefully received.

Thanks[/QUOTE]

A car from ERAC via Daimler Fleet MNgement (who act as the leasing company) would have possibly been serviced at de-fleet as part of the pre-sales process. To check this, phone Mercedes-Benz at Milton Keynes (ask for the Directors office). Also, these car, once ERAC have finished with them, are often sold as secondhand through the Mercedes-Benz own retailers or their Direct used car operation - is this the case here?

 

[macru]

(If I knew how to do quotes, I would. But can't work them out!)

The car was sold by a Mercedes Benz retailer after ownership by ERAC to a private individual who owned the car for 6 months.

The display on the dash is saying the next service due is a 'C' service, so does this mean it would have had an 'A' and a 'B' service previously, or can the service letters vary in order?

The car itself shows up on Mercedes system, but no service history.

Thanks for the advice re phoning MB at Milton Keynes - will do so.

 

[moonloops]

As you mentioned there is a huge story in the news today about certain car manufacturers selling off ex rental cars as "ex management cars"

 

[Superspec]

Lots of cars on main dealer forecourts are ex rentals or fleet cars. That's why they have low mileages. They are contracted to do 12/13k miles then swapped. Peugeot used to call them factory cars. The last 3 used cars I bought turned out to be ex-lease/rentals. All immaculate and no issues, it isn't in the dealer's interests to sell dodgy cars. That said I've only bought new cars recently, only way you can be sure of it's history, of course, the depreciation sucks.

 

[moonloops]

Lots of cars on main dealer forecourts are ex rentals or fleet cars. That's why they have low mileages. They are contracted to do 12/13k miles then swapped. Peugeot used to call them factory cars. The last 3 used cars I bought turned out to be ex-lease/rentals. All immaculate and no issues, it isn't in the dealer's interests to sell dodgy cars. That said I've only bought new cars recently, only way you can be sure of it's history, of course, the depreciation sucks.

I agree, probably nothing wrong with the cars but they have to be properly described...

 

[Dryce]

As you mentioned there is a huge story in the news today about certain car manufacturers selling off ex rental cars as "ex management cars"

And Columbus just discovered America.

This story dredges up every so often. Shock horror. How do people reckon that these batches of similar spec similar age similar mileage year'ish old Corsas, Focus's, Astras, etc magically come from?

Where do many (most?) of those year old standard spec AU MB's come from?

 

[billywhiz]

Correct with all whats being said above - the more 'bread & butter cars - Fords - Vauxhall etc are bought by Rental companies using either a risk purchase or buyback purchase ( US term is 'Programme Cars' ) - Risk units are ran on fleet then sold off by the company direct, normal through auctions or dealer network - these are lesser repaired with 90% requiring some sort of SMART repair - although many rental companies are cracking down on back end costs so expect to see a few ratty ones coming through.

Buyback cars go back to a dealer nominated site where they are inspected to ensure the criteria and state of the vehicle are within contract terms - if so then any SMART repairs are carried out ~( most rental companies have backend price set deals per unit ) - These are more than likley to go straight to a closed dealer only auction and thats why we see these at Main Dealers, again mostly looking very good condition and average miles. ex-management cars is a tosh story however one could argue that the avg family of four coming off plane at heathrow from spain are not going to be driving all the mercs - above % for the bread & butter cars - higher grp cars do tend to be driven by people on business > more so those not paying the rental fee or through company contract.

So in essence 'ex-management' is a very loose term but any rental company 'could' provide, well not provide but argue that people within management structures have indeed driven those cars.. > The rental companies will always win this arguement.

Higher grps / 'prestige' cars will also do lower mileage . as per rental rates so the utilisation on those grps is a lot lower - ( around 54% ) as opposed to 65/70% for bread & butter cars..

Have I waffled enough ?

In answer to the OP - I think this car should be ok - it would have gone through the backend buyback process as Merc does not sell on risk unit contracts ( well very,very, rare ) + this way Merc gets to ensure residual values on their dealer fleets.

Summary > Everyones a winner

 

[gIzzE]

(If I knew how to do quotes, I would. But can't work them out!)

The car was sold by a Mercedes Benz retailer after ownership by ERAC to a private individual who owned the car for 6 months.

The display on the dash is saying the next service due is a 'C' service, so does this mean it would have had an 'A' and a 'B' service previously, or can the service letters vary in order?

The car itself shows up on Mercedes system, but no service history.

Thanks for the advice re phoning MB at Milton Keynes - will do so.

Anyone can reset the service status using the steering wheel controls, doesn't mean it has been serviced, and even if it has, with a missing service history I would walk away.

How do you know for a fact that that car has not actually done 80k miles??

I do 40k miles a year in mine and that car is 2 years old now. Wind the clock back to 14k miles say it hasn't needed its first service yet and stick it up for £20k instead of £12k.

Service history for me means so much more than just the services being done on time. I have been caught out once with this myself, and luckily got my money back.

Call Mercedes and ask when the car was last seen, if they say it was in for some warranty work in Janurary and had 55k miles on it you know something is up.
Also, remember without a proper service history that conforms with Mercedes stipulations you also have no Mercedes warranty.

What does the service date say?? It will say 'xxxxx miles and xxx days' to the next service, it should be the same date as the build date of the car but 2 years later.

 

[st4]

No way would a V6 CDi go to 29k miles.

Does the regi start with a K. All Mercedes fleet, leased etc cars are registered at Milton Keynes and will have a plate starting in K?

 

[macru]

No way would a V6 CDi go to 29k miles.

Does the regi start with a K. All Mercedes fleet, leased etc cars are registered at Milton Keynes and will have a plate starting in K?

Yes it does - I've sort of accepted the fact that it's a leased car, which may be a bad thing or not I suppose.

I'm reasonably happy the mileage is ok - it checks out with MB who had it in for some warranty work.

Someone has suggested it might have been misfuelled - I don't know on what grounds they thought that. Is there any way of telling?

 

[gIzzE]

I have to ask, why are you considering such a new car with a load of missing service history?

Is it seriously cheap or something?

It will need to be when you sell it on again.

There are hundreds of E320cdi's out there with perfect history, why bother with this one.

Ask yourself this, are you happy at the price if it turns out it has been clocked and really done 100,000 miles? If so then go for it.

 

[developer]

You've raised a number of concerns here that you will be unable to get concrete peace of mind answers on.


Not knowing the detail of the deposit you've committed, I'd be inclined to find another car - there's loads around.

Every time you get a noise or something that feels not quite right you'll be telling yourself it's because of it's previous history.

You certainly don't want to suffer this.........

Buyer's remorse - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It will bug you on a daily basis.

 

[Deleted member 37751]

If you are unsure about the mileage, get them to plug it into star and give you a print-out of a mileage check.
You can't 'clock' star....

 

[macru]

Just to update after many phone calls to MB dealers and MB head office re service history/warranty queries....

am fairly reassured re mileage as it went in for small electrical issue under warranty and mileage tallies ok...

It's going to get serviced by MB before I buy it, so rightly or wrongly am going ahead - fingers crossed.

Yes, the deposit was a factor in deciding to go ahead, but not totally.

If it starts to have problems, I guess I'll be back here again!

Thanks for all your advice and comments - much appreciated

 

[macru]

ps What's 'star' - not heard of it before. What's it an acronym of?