The listing is already off CL.

If I'm paying cash, you can expect the first offer to be in the dirt! I'm looking and I can keep looking, besides, I view my cash as green and portable. I do this with houses, cars, boats, guns, or critters. My wife keeps telling me, "you are just going to make them mad!". Heck, I'm not trying to make friends, I'm trying to buy something at my price and I don't really care if they get do mad.

It took a few months to buy this TD because...my neighbor will pay more, I just put 700 bucks into it, it's worth much more than you're offering. My answers were ...1. sell it to him, 2. I don't care, 3. no, it's not, it's worth what I, the buyer, think it's worth! In the end, I got it for 300 less than I offered the first time.

One of the things that pains me most in life is for a seller to jump on my first offer....geeez, I could have gone even lower! Start way low, it's easy to come up.

Was the car listed by Barooni Inports? If so its been relisted this AM:
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/car/699654871.html

Somebody call him and offer him $500 for it... please record the conversation for us.

I bought my 82 300SD for a steal. $500.00

Sure, it had/has a few issues, but for me that's all part of the fun. I like working on it, so I don't mind. I may even do a WVO kit from greasecar.com at some point.

wow, you overpaid! my 83 was 150 less than that!!!thbbb I got my 82 for FREE!!!
... now for all the issues... wheeee!

lowballing
 

Just make your offer, politely and calmly. Don't tell the guy "it will never sell for that much" etc. Only a jerkoff would say that. You are insulting him, and will never make a deal that way. I've found the best way to lowball is to take the money out of your pocket, hold it right in front of him, ask "will you take XXX for it" and SHUT UP. Keep holding the money in front of him until he either takes it out of your hand (which means you have a deal) or he says says no. Money talks, everything else is BS.

When i bought my wagon, the asking price was $1500. I offered $750 and settled at $900

Sent my brother in law who has no interest in older cars to bid on a 48 ford in pretty good condition. If I would have gone the guy would have tried to jack the price. The last vehicle I wanted to buy from him he stated I could afford the elevated price.
Anyways told the brother in law to offer 2k. Brother in law offered 200.00. The reaction was volcanic I was told. I asked him why he offered the 200.00 instead of what I told him to. He said the car was pretty old and could not be worth 2.000.00 dollars so he bid 200.00. Car sold for 1800.00 and left town. This was a few years ago before prices really escallated.
What is even worst I did a quick repair on a nice 50 ford coupe. He did not mention it was for sale. Perhaps I should have mentioned I might be interested. It was sold the next day for 1,000.00 and was a nice low milage example. If nothing else it taught me to ask if something is for sale. This too goes back quite a few years.
I do not miss them all but decent deals (steals) seem far apart these days. May be my technique. Or I am just not stumbling into them as much.
Last one around two years ago with low milage. A 300d not running yet in really clean low milage shape. You can never be certain but the indicated 160k seems easily possible. Looks like it has not even been sat in. Five hundred and the problems were caused by an obstructed tank vent. Also had to remove and repair the starter. He had cranked it till he killed it. Steering is still the tightest of any example of this model I have ever driven. Car is just generally super tight in comparison to some of my other mercedes diesels. He took my reasonable offer. :)

I would say what you say to the person also depends a lot on who you're talking to. While it's "jerkoff"ish to tell many people, "It'll never sell for that," if (as in the case of the story I told earlier in the thread) it's a kid who inherited the car from his grandma, just wants to get rid of it (and fast), and whose knowledge of Mercedes extends to "they're nice", you can save them a lot of time and money by simply letting them know ahead of time what they should expect to get for their car (the high range). If the kid had listened to what I had told him in the first place he would have sold the car in a week instead of 4 months.

Yes, but now this experience make the kid wiser....
Some lessons are better learned the hard way.

Jim