Im in the market for a new E53 - not picky on color, just want three basic packages that most have (drivers assistance, exclusive trim, and leather). Two questions: 1) On the MBUSA site, there are a few 2025 cars still out there, listed as new that I assume will have a huge discount applied to them. Given my fairly loose preferences, it seems like the right move would be to go after those cars, as long as i confirm low mileage on the odometer, the warranty hasn’t been punched, and never titled or used as demo/loaner, etc. Anything wrong with that strategy? Given how long in the tooth those cars are, what would be a good discount off MSRP? 2) I called a dealer in Cali today (im in Utah) and when i mentioned that I was in Utah, he said “great so are you going to pay cash or finance?” I obv didnt fall into the trap of talking about what I was going to do (definitely lease) but inquired why he didnt mention leasing. He said “oh dealers cant lease cars to out of state residents. You’d have to have the car swapped to a local dealer to do that” That was the first time i’d heard that. That seems wrong or am i missing something? Another dealer said they’d sell me a car but i’d have to personally take delivery at the site and then arrange for trucking. Is that common for out of state deals? Thanks in advance.
It’s the dealer’s choice, and their prerogative, as to whether they do out-of-state deals. Not the salesperson, but likely the GM/owner. Many reasons for this but most common are due to fraud, are you a repeat customer, would you bring the vehicle back for servicing, the availability of the vehicle (low volume vs mass market), etc.
Fraud and identity theft are usually the biggest problems that they are guarding against. Also, many CA dealers don’t do business out-of-state (don’t need to, complications with taxes/delivery), or they will do so with restrictions (i.e. in person pickup). What you are describing is pretty common; it’s not a $50k car but $100k+.
Also, just because it’s a 2025 E53, don’t assume there’ll be a huge discount. I don’t track MB’s so not sure if there’s even any lease/financing support for it anymore. Translation - dealers may not be willing to go deep in the red on it on their own. And it’s only March… still early
Wrong assumption, as mentioned, in many cases the dealer may still have ‘25’s sitting on their lot for the exact opposite reason, i.e. they won’t discount them nearly enough.
And even if you can score a “huge” discount that doesn’t necessarily mean a 2025 will be better to lease than a 2026.
And as noted it’s up to the dealer whether they do out of state deals or not. I’m in NC, my last Mercedes lease came from a dealer in IL, flew up and drove it home 700 miles in one day.
So all very good responses above - thank you. A couple of clarifications - there is indeed some lease support on the MBs - based on the LH calculator (and also reverse engineered from the mbfs website) the MF of the subvented lease on the 2025 is .00172 which compares to the standard MF of .003. The 2026 has a worse MF of .00215. The RVs on a 3/36 lease on the 2025 is 51 and the 2026 is 53. (Not sure if those MFs are the so called “buy rate”?) So the math seems to cut in favor of the 2025 if you factor in aging inventory and lower sale price to reduce cap cost. My reference to “trap” was that I was told it’s best to negotiate hard on price before broaching financing/leasing because otherwise you run the risk of them giving you a good sale price and then burying margin in the MF (my understanding is you can’t really mess with the RV).
Super helpful to understand that out of state leases are at the decision of the dealer. To avoid the hassle, any logic/precedent in calling my local dealer, telling him I wasn’t a deeply discounted 2025 and letting deal with the hassle of swapping etc, as long as he meets my number?
Correct, RV is fixed. MF can be marked up, and MB dealers typically markup the acquisition fee too.
In a dealer trade, both sides have to have something the other side wants. More often when they are in the same dealer group, local stores or at least in the same region. Neither side has to agree to the trade. There will also be shipping costs involved ($1-2k, CA-UT?). Factor all that in, you may not get much of a deal in a dealer trade.
Better off coming up with your target deal and working with the holding dealer directly.
This is terrible advice and a huge waste of time for both you and the dealer.
Develop a target deal and make the dealer an offer, let them know you will be leasing from square one. Tell them you can be there tomorrow at 11am to sign if they can get to $1k/mo with $2k DAS (or whatever your target deal comes to be).
If they agree to your target, then who cares if they are marking up the MF or where they are burying their margin. Let the dealer decide how they want to make their money.
People new to leasing will often confuse the total discount w/ the dealer’s discount off MSRP b/c they haven’t taking into account the rebates/incentives “hidden” in that total discount.
If you know what rebates and incentives are available (and you can know that b/c you’re a Super Supporter and can access Ratefindr), then you already know what the rebates and incentives are.
Not disclosing immediately that you’re going to lease ends up wasting time for the dealership (b/c a lease is structured totally differently from financing), which could possibly make the dealership less willing to deal w/ you.
The MF being marked up is a different matter entirely.
Thanks - but it seems these AMGs are cursed by horrible RVs. And from what I understand, there’s nothing I can do about it since they are fixed by MBFS. Am I missing something? Which is why it seems like the only thing I can control is the % discount and Im trying hard to push down on. (But the advice above is that Im going about that backwards - should have just went in with DAS and lease payment.)
Both things are true at the same time. An E53 is going to be a terrible lease. If you are going to lease in spite of the terrible programs, then just develop a target deal and make the dealer an offer as I described above.
Negotiating hard on the “sales price” or “discount” then telling them last minute you want to lease just opens the door for even more ambiguity and isn’t going to magically make this a good lease.
Have you played around with numbers in the calculator to see exactly what the lease is going to look like?
Thanks so much for the steer. I have played with the calculator so have a decent idea of whats possible. Its interesting that the feedback from dealers has been that the majority of AMGs are leased (other then the AMG G wagons who hold their RVs very well apparently).
So in this case, does it make sense to finance? They do have incentives on the financing. This is sort of basic, but one of the key reasons I dont want to finance is that I like this model, but given the bad RVs and a rapidly changing market demand for hybrids, there’s a chance the floor really drops out on resales of these cars when im ready for a new one in 3 years and then im stuck with a car with no buyers or really really bad trade-in values. Is that crazy thinking?
You just need to run a detailed lease vs. buy analysis and go from there. Map out a 5 year loan at X% and see what your payoff would be after 3 years, compare that to the lease, etc.
It’s possible that while the lease is bad, the finance might not be that much better. It’s also possible that you could be $10k ahead in even a worst case scenario with a finance. Just have to run the numbers and see.
Yep use a spreadsheet or go to AI and run a total cost of ownership study (the better the parameters you provide while prompting will make it better) on cash total cost vs finance total cost vs lease total cost and analyze the numbers…you will learn a lot!
And yes one of the biggest values of leasing is having a defined ‘out’ value…I mean I would never pay cash or finance an EV!
For what it’s worth, a North Carolina dealer was happy to quote me a lease on an estate. 99k msrp, 54k residual on 7500/year and they quoted $2k/mo. I do t return his calls.
