Looking to see what a reasonable discount on 2023 S500 I could aim for. MSRP $127k.
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20% -30% depending on what the dealer is willing to stack.
Wow, do you know off hand what incentives are available?
Lol, put a link to your trophy pic! 31% off MSRP, nice job.
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New or loaner?
When you’re shopping model-year-end closeouts, I think it’s less about what incentives are available and more about pricing the deal relative to what you could get if you looked for a slightly used CPO in the marketplace. Or, go query the MMR thread in the Hackrs Lounge (for paying members) so you can see what a 2023 S500 is going for at auction.
Remember, whether you lease, finance, or pay cash… a car is just an asset the seller is trying to move. If they can’t move the vehicle, it could go to auction at which point they’ll get hammered. So, structure your close-out deal to where the capitalized cost of the vehicle (before any fees and taxes and lease shenanigan’s) makes sense to you (considering the age of the vehicle).
@z0lt3c sees so many things go through Manheim, he can write a really cool blog post about what happens when dealers bag hold aged inventory.
For a real-world example, here’s a S500 for sale in Oklahoma. No joke, this vehicle went up as a used CPO almost 12 months ago. It’s price back then was $124,224 (basically MSRP). During the last 12 months, the dealership is putting demo/loaner miles on it. But they simply won’t drop the price enough to sell it. So now it’s listing for $90k, which is probably still overpriced.
Edit: here’s the latest 90 days price history on CarGurus. You’re getting a real-time view into how this value has been tanking and how S500s clearing auction are probably dropping at $750 per week. Too bad CarGurus won’t log price drops over the entire 52+ weeks.
That CPO is probably worth ~$90k. So it wouldn’t make sense to set up a lease structure where the capitalized cost was more than $100k for a new S500 with similar option load. (I edited my numbers since Z0lt3c pasted MMR).
Yes, I get it… you can’t lease a CPO. But being able to lease a car is a boon for the buyer. The seller sees the same $ come into their managed accounts. The buyer shouldn’t be paying a $5k premium for the benefit of being able to lease a new car vs finance a new car.
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They are advertising, prertty much, at Manheim retail. But this is the problem.
Hard to sell a car like this without subvented rates.
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Yeah, leases with some MSD (0.0018 MF going down to 0.0014) so it’s a bit cheaper than a CU financing at 5.5% and tying up a ton of equity to make principal payments.
I guess if you see a new 2023 S500 still on any dealer lot, just tell them to structure at buy rate with a $90,000 selling price. Unless you’re Rutvij_3400, at which point your offer is $85,000 heh. Next, week your offer drops $750 in line with the MMR drop haha.
BTW, Balloons are illegal in California 
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Negative
Thanks for all feedback thus far.
Assuming the discount is top notch, isn’t the MF on these shit anyway?
I’ve been told .0018
Yeah, I don’t think 0.0018 is “shit”, but it is worse than the 0.0006 that MBFS is putting on EQS 580 Sedans.
If all you care about are payments and the brand name, the EQS 580 Sedan is much cheaper than a S500.
Right but a s500 is a good vehicle the eqs is not
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I don’t understand why they landfilled my post about this, but @oarfish18 does actually have line of sight to get someone into a cashmere white magno S500 in NorCal. It’s got AMG Line! Looks very nice, way better than black IMO.
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In your experience, what month do MY-1 (2023) typically lose their lease support from MBFS?
I am guessing the further in the year we are the higher the (pre-incentive) discount a dealer will be willing to make, since they don’t know if they will lose lease support at the end of the current month or if MBFS will continue their lease support for the next month.
This question is not really answerable in a forum-format… since every vehicle model year behaves differently. One of these days, LH is going to get some people together and do a podcast series. It’ll be interesting for sure. Way more fun than the meme lounge. I nominate @z0lt3c, @GOAT, @thevolvoguy to get a healthy dose of personalities and knowledge in an entertaining format.
As it pertains to this thread… Unfortunately, car buying is complex, every deal is different. Every car is different. There is no script to follow or rule of thumb.
Keep in mind that stakeholders look at a car transaction through the lens that has worked for them throughout their lifetime.
Buyers typically look at deals in terms of monthly payments, purchase price, or what rebates they get off MSRP when compared against other product offerings. Because starting with MSRP is the lens buyers typically get access to. That’s why so many people on LH very rapidly adopt the mindset of "how much can I cut down from MSRP with rebates and discounts?
Sellers at a dealership typically look at things in terms of profit per unit sold. Most senior people at a dealership come up through sales, and they have way more information on the sales side about the car you’re interested in. Put some really good sales people in a room, and they’ll have their mental calculator of what the dealership’s bottom-net (with holdback returned to the dealer) cost is. From this starting point, they can add back dealer pack, sales flat, and variable commissions to arrive at a variable margin on the sale given what a customer may pay (for a lease this would be the adjusted cap cost w/out inceptions and customer’s down payment). So they’re coming at things from a different angle.
Trying to time corporate activities or captive financing activities is really rough if you’re a buyer. Your best bet is to take information that you can get (such as what lightly used 2023 model year vehicles are selling for at retail or MMR) and leverage that to make sure you aren’t over-paying for your loaner or new-car.
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Typically March/April of the following year is the last month of lease support. Although the 2022 SL was/is still getting lease support into 2024 but this is an anomaly.
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