Quote:
Originally Posted by Skid Row Joe
If a high-mileage clock car is priced low enough it will always sell to someone. Many used buyers are confined to plugging in their budget, rather than scrutinize miles on a car. When they happen on a low-priced high-mileage car, to them it looks like a bargain. Which it may or may not be.
The last two cars I sold with mega-miles on them were cases of buyers that had to sweat getting loans for really low-priced (sub $5K)cars 14 and 16 years old. On my 300SD (305K) miles, the buyer was more concerned with getting a loan, than miles on the low-priced car. ie, he couldn't afford the same model with low miles, so he was eager to buy it. The 14 year old car had 269K miles.
One thing that is hard on parts of a car is the starting and stopping, or short time cycles of it's engine running. Time and high-miles will inevitably catch up to any car with mega-miles on them, requiring parts replacement and repair. No way around that.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TimFreeh
I'm amazed to hear that apparently financing is available for a 14 to 16 year old car? Wow. That's almost more amazing than the thought of someone wanting to finance a 300K mile Mercedes that is 14 to 16 years old!! I wonder if leasing a 14 year old 300K mile Mercedes would be a possible way to lower the cost of the ownership experience?
Anybody that is considering entering the universe of owning a Mercedes with multiple hundreds of thousands of miles on the clock, and has decided that financing such a purchase is a sound financial decision, should carefully read your second paragraph above...... and look into the financing options that are available for repairs when their financed car breaks.
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Tim,
I don't know that there would be any sourcing for leasing a 14 to 16 year old Mercedes with 300K on them. Never heard of such a thing.
One thing I've noticed is that some lower budget end MB diesel buyers are more interested in 'getting-in' a Mercedes, than whether it is practical in terms of future costs of repair, parts, or downtime. The budget is the defining instrument to be plugged into, not the miles on an aged car.
The guy that bought my 305K miled 300SD had me pick up a check for my car from a strip shopping center finance company. This was in 1999. Those no-named "household financial loan" shops were the pre-cursors to the car title loan sharks of the future we now seemingly have on every corner across the country. How the ppl came up with the money for buying these two cars wasn't my concern, as long as the funding was good.
A lot can be written about how a car of any age and miles will hold up. Personally, I decided to go with a little bit older used MB diesel this time around, for a lot less money than a newer one or a new one. I also realized that I would be happier with the older I6 W211 CDI configuration engine, rather than the newer V6 Blutec W211sedan. The big bonus for me was keeping a lot of money in my pocket, rather than spending it on a new to me used car.
In my very long search for just the right used MB diesel sedan, I noticed in Carfax after Carfax report how to preliminarily size-up any given 05 through 09 CDI or Bluetec. One commonality that seemed to prevail was that it seemed to me that it was Russian-roulette buying a used MB diesel with virtually 'no-miles' on it. By no-miles, I'm referencing the ones with fewer than 30K or so miles on them. The very low-miled examples had not been in service as pertains to miles long enough to get all the new manufacturer bugs out of it under factory warranty. For me, it became clear that I wanted an MB with both age AND some miles on it. Preferably over 30K miles - for the ones I was seeing with a good history of maintenance AND warranty-parts replacements done, had over 30K miles on them.
What I can report, is that this W211 CDI I settled on, has had various problems and repairs on it that my E300 W210
never suffered in over 100K miles/14-years. I am also able to state with certainty that it is totally unpredictable which repairs and when repairs on almost any two cars will need to be performed, regardless the age/miles.
12-29-2013, 05:14 PM
value of high mileage CDI
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