Message from Mercedes dealership
After looking at the current market conditions and taking reconditioning and certification costs into account I would be a buyer at $51,000 for her GLE.
How much did carvana and carmax offer for the vehicle?
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Are you an individual buyer at $51k or a wholesale buyer at $51k? Because there is a difference. If you try to private party this car, you are subject to sales tax and eat away at your $10k equity. Go grab some offers online, it takes all of 5 min.
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That is EXACTLY what I am trying to do. Things are changing so rapidly in the market that I think prices are going to drop soon and a lot of cars are going to be coming onto the market. The chip shortage is going to end. I am considering just buying a beater to get around for a while. I have a couple other cars for my businesses and I am trying to get her to consider driving one of those, but going from a 2020 mercedes benz to a 2013 Kia sorrento LX doesnt seem to be going to well.
I have a few options out there to get her a car, I just NEVER considered a lease because I always buy 1 or 2 year old cars and then ride them for a long time, but that is not exactly a great option right now. Leasing again is just a last resort that I might consider if that might fit my needs this ONE time.
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That $51k is from the Mercedes dealership. Basically she walks away with a $8-$9k check. I got a little bit better offer from vroom, but that doesnt seem too reliable from my 2 hours of research.
If it sounds like I am sorta uninformed on this stuff. It is because I am. She basically gave me the go ahead to get rid of her vehicle about 7 hours ago, and I am trying to get rid of it for the right price as fast as possible before she changes her mind.
Understand all that, but first separate the sunk-cost fallacy: there isnāt 10K in equity, there is less than half of the upfronts she paid on the GLE that happens to be there for the possible talking.
If you can convince her to drive something with significantly less cache than a GLE, and that you donāt have to overpay for. This is your biggest problem.
Of course the shortages will end, but not tomorrow, and at this pace unlikely this year.
And if you do lease again (fine if you donāt), you are going to get cleaned-out worse than she did 2 years ago.
Literally thousands of posts with first-hand accounts if you search and start reading. But TL;DR Iād start with an Auto Nation store for that specific unit, today.
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I would figure out exactly what a replacement will cost today before abruptly unloading the car. Itās not hard to make a bad situation worse in this market.
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Correct. She is a US citizen, but just came over from Thailand 7 years ago, and basically has no credit, at least none until we started building it about a year ago. She now has a 780 credit score, but recently lost her job, so is in a bit of a catch 22.
What does SHE want to do? How did this get motivatedā¦ from her, or from you?
I see what youāre thinking though. Youād like to capitalize on the sale while you can - the only big problem is you canāt hardly buy anything.
Whatās the goal? A lower monthly payment? Can you share a car for a little while?
Vroom is perfectly reliable. I sold my car to vroom and walked that day with a check in my hand. It was easy-peasy.
Iām thinking you are underestimating the length of time cars will stay at inflated prices by a long shot. If you havenāt noticed, dealers are following Teslaās formulaā¦ order your car online, put a deposit, no price haggling at all - especially as all manufacturers attempt to launch EVās right now and take orders for 2022.
I donāt think there is any way youāll beat that payment without a downgrade in vehicle. No matter though, the lease has not much time left. Sooner or later, youāll be in the position where you have the disadvantage to dealers.
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Buying a car is not going to be a problem for me. I am going to get as good of a deal as there is possible, even in this market. That I am not worried about. That is my specialty. I just ASKED about a lease, in the 1% chance I was missing a great lease deal out there. I have had 5-10 people I have found a car for that was anywhere from $2k to $5k less than they thought was a " great deal" (I bought my 2015 Hyundai Sonata eco with 30k miles on it in 2017 for $9500, which was like $6k under under blue book at the time).
So I am not particularly worried about the next vehicle. I am trying to get the most from this Mercedes.
Is she happy about getting rid of it? Not really. At the same time, in 7 months, that vehicle is gone, one way or the other, as she is not going to be able to come up with $41k, and she is not going to be able to get financed with her current work history, so reality is starting to set in.
The main thing I am trying to do is get her in a better LONG term deal. I dont want to basically have 7 months pass, have the dealership tell her to pound sand, keep the vehicle, lose any āequityā available now, and still be in a sellers market where she is still way overpaying for a vehicle. I know she is going to have to bite the bullet one way or the other, but I would prefer she doesnt bite the bullet twice with a double whammy of not qualifying to buy the car AND buying another car in a sellers market.
Vroom in that case. If they gave you a good quote, and the vehicle is good to go - that will probably net you the most cash right now.
How are you planning on her qualifying for a new vehicle while unemployed?
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I just sold my MB to mycarauction.com after trying to sell the car to Vroom and Carnava in the first 2 weeks. Based on my experience with Vroom they will unlikely to buy the MB lease unless you buy it out and sell it to them. Long story short, my paperwork was stuck in the Vroom acquisition team for 4 days during that time they didnāt bother to get the 3rd party dealer payoff quote from MBFS. Eventually someone said they got directive that MBFS wouldnāt allow lease buyout from 3rd dealer (which is a lie). He said that I could buy out my car, wait 14 days, and then sell it to them.
Eventually I sold the car to mycarauction which was a fast and painless process (compared to Vroom/Carnava) and I got the best offer over all the dealers that I tried.
Iād get quote from Carvana, Shift, mycarauction , Givemethevin, AlGo, Driveway.com, Car tracker, auto nation, car max etc. If you have highest offer from Vroom, you can check if other dealers will match Vroomās offer.
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He said heās not worried about that. He basically boiled down to - are there any good lease deals out there? and is vroom shady?
And you might be able to find a good deal on a Toyota lease. Scan the MARKETPLACE forum, but be sure to scroll to the end. Some of the threads start prior to shortages.
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The car market is difficult right now, but what about the girlfriend market? Might be easier to get a new one?
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Itās unfortunately a relevant question though. A poor lease deal gets made way worse with poor credit mixed in. Also ups the chance of them doing actual income verification, so just saying thereās income isnāt a particularly good option.
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I agree with you. He stated heās an astute car buyer that has a preference for buying gently used and sounds like he will lean that direction but wanted to verify leasing as an option in the process. (?) Iām not sure why the extra story was included.
I donāt know if a lower payment is what heās after, or total lower cost of ownership for x years - Iām guessing total cost of ownership. That math should be easy to work.
I will ultimately probably buy the car, put it in my name and have her make the payments. Overall lower ownership cost for the long term is my main goal.
I have been looking at cars on autotrader. Depressing, but still better than driving a piece of s*** Mercedes that has broken down 5 times, been towed 3 times and generally has something āmalfunctionā every couple of months. There is a reason it scores about a 36 out of a 100 on consumer reports. It has been a disaster from day one, both financial and functional.
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I had a merc once, it was a pos.
But my mom had a c300 she drove for 17 years! But she put enough money into it to buy a Toyota Camryā¦.
You already know the best option. Sell it now when you can recoup some of her losses and put her in a cheap one one way or another. Btw, i hope her insistence on a luxury ride in bad days is not an indicative of future behavior .
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