My diary on trying to sell my Mercedes (first hand account)

Well, after driving her a long time I have decided to sell the Mercedes C220. I thought I would do it myself since dealers dont give much on trade-ins. I thouhgt I would post how it goes here so others can learn from me or maybe others can give advice .

So here is how it starts. About three weeks ago or so, I put an ad up here in Mercedesshop classifieds as well as a sign on my car. The only one that got anywhere was the sign. A young gentleman who spoke very poor english (I think he was Russian) came to look at it, and brought a friend who could translate. He checked it out for about 10 minutes, drove it, then made a pretty decent offer ($4,700 when I wanted $5,200). I didnt act interested, and as time passed, he kkept lowering his offer until he said he would give me $4,500 in cash. I declined his offer.

I considered selling it on eBay, and have even had a wonderful experience on eBay selling an Alfa Romeo I had. However, I am not really in a hurry to sell and eBay fees are a little high. Also, many people have bad experience with high bidders who dont come through with sale.

So instead, last Sunday I bought an ad through AutoTrader. That has been giving me some pretty good luck. I have gotten seven or eight people to contact me within the three days since the ad was posted. I just got back from meeting the first batch of potential buyers face to face.

They called lost trying to get to me so I said to stay at the Wendys they were at and that I would meet them there. It was a group of three young asians, one of which had a white 1994 C220 just like mine.

They inspected every little thing about the car, as they should since buying a used car can be risky. One was clearly a mechanic (or at least thought he was). He is the one who drove my car. He was kind of getting on my nerves as he kept slamming the gas for hard acceleration. He kept inspecting everything. THen we return and they talk amongst themselves when he (the "mechanic") asked me what I want for it. I I said price is negotiable, but that to give him an idea of how low I wont go i told him i declined the offer for $4500. He said that my fan kept coming on too early and tried to give me a reason why (I forgot what he said). I told him I have had in for service recently at the dealership and that they never said anything (hinting to him he doesnt know what he is talking about). I must have turned tham off when I said i turned down someone else's offer of 4500. They left and said they would call me. YOu want to tell these poeple that if they want new, they should go buy new for about $30k more than what I want for mine, but you have to be nice. There is nothing wrong with my car and this psuedo mechanic acted like the cooling fans kicking in on an 87 degree day after a short drive is something bad. So he messed up my sale.

Thats okay, its been less then a week and I get about two contacts a day. Stay tuned for more of my diary!

[suginami]

Selling a private party used car is hard. I've sold all mine that way, and my experience was similar to yours.

I ran ads in the local paper, in Photo Buys and the Auto Trader, as well as autotrader.com, and got virtually no response.

I finally put a sign on my cars and parked them in front of a local supermarket in town that faces a busy street.

They all sold that way, except for one car, which I sold to a co-worker's 18 year old daughter.

I do have some advice for you, though.

Most people expect to knock off about 10-20% from a seller's asking price.

Since you are asking $5,200, the average buyer would expect an offer of $4,500 to be accepted. It's only 14% less.

If you want more, I'd consider raising your asking price so that the prospective buyer thinks he's doing a good job negotiating. At the end of the day, the buyer needs to think he's getting a deal.

[Jason Beal]

A bird in the hand....

I would have taken the first offer. I've sold lots of cars and I have learned that offers don't come everyday. I've passed on offers and then had cars sit for a month. If you really need to get that price, I'd raise it like Sug. said.

Good luck.

[Hatterasguy]

It sounds like you want $5,000 for your car. List it for $5,500 or $6,000. $4,500 cash was a good offer.

[sfloriII]

I've sold a couple cars. I listed an RX-7 in the local paper and couldn't keep up with the phone calls. It sold fast, only because I hadn't done my research and sold it well below its value-- but I needed money for tuition.

I also sold CRX-SI in Auto Trader. I was pleased with the results. It sold in a couple weeks and I got a fair offe for it.

All other cars I've owned were either given away or killed by other drivers, most regretably my 240-D.

[koop]

he offered 4700, you turned it down and he said "OK 4500'? thats a novel twist on car buying. Maybe if you kept at it you could have gotten him down t 4000.

$4,500 was a good offer???

That sounds like a horrible offer to me. I have seen Mercedes 190's from the 1980's with 200k miles go for that. I am not giving my car away.

As far as an update, I got a call this morning at 7am concerning my car. Autotrader draws all kinds of people. Then after work I played my v-mail and listened to messages from people all over USA. Some of these people call me to promising to fly in "next week with cash" but you know they never will. I guess this is what you have to go through to sell a car, but I think its all kind of fun. Also, at least my email box is getting messages from people other than the regulars, so that makes checking my email fun.

Okay, I will let you guys know what happens in my next meeting with potential buyers, about crazy lowballers (one guy offered me $4k ) and other stories from the sale.

[Hatterasguy]

I didn't want to offend you. What do you think your car is worth? I have seen C220's for sale in my area for $4,800 granted they were probably beat. Maybe you should try asking more, your car sounds real nice. I'd try listing it for $6,000. Or $5,200 firm. If you ask $6k and the guy offers you $5,500 he thinks he is getting a bargin. (Witch he is, the C220 is the model I should have bought.)

[blackmercedes]

You should move to Alberta. In my parts, it's possible to fetch $13-15,000 for a 94 C220 in clean condition with decent mileage. That's $10-12K US. There is the occasional beat-to-death car at $10K, maybe a bit less, but they are rare.

Can you Yanks really get $4500 for an 80's vintage 190E with 350,000 kilometers? Even here, our 1990 190E 2.6 with that many km's would fetch maybe $3500CAN. The C220 is much more desirable car, and priced much higher.

[Hatterasguy]

Yeah but Mercedes are probably still rare cars up their. Down here their a dime a dozen. The other day I parked on a side street to go get lunch. 8 cars were their; 5 were Mercedes, 1 Volvo, 1 BMW and 1 Chevy. ML's and E320's and C230's are everywhere. Really nice C220's are like $8,000. I saw one for $7,500 a 96 or 95 I beleive, with 6 months left on a starmark warrenty, 80K miles. I like the little C-class I should have bought one.

Well, today I got a call from someone saying they were outside looking at my car. I went out to meet them to see that there were three people. I noticed right away that they couldn't speak english very well, and that made communication hard. Well, they wasted about 30 minutes of my life inspecting the car only to give me the biggest low-ball offer to date... $3,600!!!!!! I got so mad that I didn't even act polite, and basically told them that they want a used Mercedes but that they want to pay used Kia price. I then suggested to them that they go look at some used older Kias because its more within their price range. I was laughing at them while saying that, and I let them know that I make what they were offering me in a short time at work, and that I would rather drive the car into the ground before I sell it for that. Thats what I am going to do to low-ballers that waste my time, I am going to be rude to them. And then they had the nerve to leave their number with me. I wanted to throw it away in front of them but they wrote (without asking) on an important piece of paper in my car

[Jason Beal]

Originally posted by DTM FAN
$4,500 was a good offer???

That sounds like a horrible offer to me. I have seen Mercedes 190's from the 1980's with 200k miles go for that. I am not giving my car away.

Are you sure they sold for that, or the asking price was that? People can ask whatever the want, but they could still be driving the car 10 months later too.

People will call and not show up, people will call and low ball you, people will say and (not) do anything. That is why I think the first offer wasn't that bad. You don't like being lowballed? Well you could have already had fairly close to asking price already.

You never know though. Some people will act like they couldn't give a hoot about the car. Then two weeks later, show up at your home without calling, with cash in hand for full price. You never know.

I guess it's all up to you and what you want/need to do.

[jrmd01]

$4,500 seems to be a reasonable offer since your asking price is $5,200. You mentioned on your last post you make $3,600 in a short time at work so $700 shouldn't be considered a "BIG loss" to you.

Regarding that low ball offer of $3,600...as someone already mentioned you will get a bunch of low ball offers and people who are just wasting your time. Personally I would have taken the $4,500 and been done with it. If you really want $5,200 you should list it for more....say $6,000 or $6,500.

Good luck.

I am definitly listening to you guys. I think I may raise the asking price so people can negotiate down to what I actually want. I will probably do this after another week of testing out my method of "sell-low-but-don't-negotiate-much."

I once sold my 1993 Honda Prelude VTEC for only $200 less than what I was asking, and I was asking alot. It took about two months though.

[Plantman]

I always get a kick out of people who come see a car and ask if the price I'm asking is the best price?

I alway respond with " well , what's your best offer? I might surprise you dummy....

The problem is that buyers don't want to commit to anything, yet want you to commit to a price so they can continue to shop around.

I like to waste their time by telling them that I might lower the price tomorrow......or raise it, depending on my mood.

If your car is as good as advertised, raise the price and be patient......or call back the guy that offered you 4500.00 and split the difference. He might not have found a car as nice as yours and be willing.