I wonder if the dealers in your zone just collude to only sell to locals at an elevated price. If they ran high net price along side low net price to locals, then folks who live nearby could start deal hunting. So instead they just export a bunch of cars well out of the region to take a L on those dogs.
They may think they make up more margin by keeping their higher average transaction prices on their other inventory sold near Dallas/Plano/Sugarland.
Of course such collusion would be illegal… but almost impossible to prove. And of course your state isn’t known for being consumer friendly.
Do you know how pissed those 10 really rich dudes in the MBWorld SL63 sub-forum would be if you showed up and said you got a new SL63 for like $100k from a dealer?
MB is probably willing to do some other BS to make it worth the dealer’s while to just take these SL63s off the market. Instead of killing whatever little goodwill they may have with their loyal buyers who paid way too much.
I think they’d be better off dropping the Lease MF to 0.0001 and selling to you and @djrabbi. At least then the sales price would remain somewhat high but the monthly lease would be somewhat within your wheelhouse.
Yeah, I found a lease calculator from a previous broker’s deal, and it appears I am about $95 over what their pricing was. So not terrible, but I think I can get them down a little more.
If I were in your shoes, I would put together a calculator (assuming base MF) + all rebates you qualify for to figure out what discount off MSRP will be required to get to your target monthly. My $0.02.
You gotta give MB-USA credit… they rallied together to put about $100mm of corporate money on the EQS to clear out the 2023 units.
Between March Madness, the MIB/Fleet, adjustments to dealer front-end or holdback, the $7,500 pass through, and subventing the residual and money factor… they’ve been able to price the EQS like a Honda Accord. And the demand materialized.
For 2024, it seems MB has significantly curtailed the number of EQS Sedan and SUV being manufactured. We won’t see the likes of this pricing on EQS ever again.
I think it’s been discussed a few times in this Superthread, but aside from some really eager people who bought in 2022 and early 2023, the EQS seems to be best compared a IONIQ 5 or 6. MB missed the mark on the vehicle design and volume forecasts.
