Life happens. I would’ve never thought I would need to sell me and my wife’s cars. I recently lost my job in LA but was fortunate to find another job in NYC. It is a big move and we will have to get rid of our cars. Both cars are in a rather tricky situation so I am very curious what my options are. What will be my best options to sell the following cars?
2024 GLC 300. Leased in 6/2024 with full MSDs. (7500 miles/year and 3yr lease).
Brand new GLC300 with limited miles. I believe we can terminate the lease but may be more economical to buyout the car and sell it to say carmax. What is the best option here??
2019 CLS 450. Leased in 2020 but now I bought out the lease using a loan.
To sell my car, I presume I have to payout the loan correct? Does changing titles and whatnot take a long time? If I pay off the loan (not much left), I can just sell it right away, correct?
Apologies in advance but I really do not know much about terminating car leases/loans. I was wondering if I could get some expert advice.
Thank you in advance and merry christmas everyone!
First off, what do you mean by “generate a payoff on MBFS?”
Also, thank you for mentioning the sales tax refund. So instead of me having to buyout the lease and the loan, I can have a car dealer buy it out for me? Or does it just mean I have to work with the car dealer/buyer before I buyout the lease and the loan?
Apologies again as I am far from an expert when it comes to these loans and leases.
Login to your MB lease account, there’s an option to generate a payoff statement.
At one time MB didn’t allow third party (e.g. Carvana or other dealers) buyouts, I believe they do now, but still no lease transfers. In thr event you need to buyout the lease to sell it, you have 10 days to recover any sales tax paid.
The more MB literate here will undoubtedly jump-in and cover anything I missed.
@jeisensc is mostly talking about your leased GLC300. The financed car - you can sell to anyone and the buyer (non-private party) pays off your loan and you pocket equity.
For the financed car it will be easier to have the title in hand for a private sale but if you sell to carmax or the dealer they won’t care that there’s a lien.
They will call your loan company to ask what the payoff is and the per diem increase per day. They end up paying off your loan and the difference between sale price and payoff goes to you, usually in a check that can take a few weeks to process.
If you have the title in hand the check will come much quicker, but similarly if you pay off the car now it’ll take a few weeks for the title to arrive to you. Dealers usually prefer in this instance that they pay it off, not you.
I’ve not done a private sale but as others have said, there are three things involved—car, money, and title. Neither buyer or seller should have all three at one time.
You’ll do better selling privately but sometimes it’s not worth the hassle for a few extra thousand.
So I can go to carvana/carmax and sell the glc300 that is currently leased right? I have max MSDs with mercedes benz financial but I presume I’d be getting all that back too, right?
So it seems like the best way to do this is to find a buyer who is willing to buy both cars. I wonder if these platforms will entertain a combo deal of some sort.
I will be moving in exactly about a month and also very curious how long everything will take. I will have to be overseas for a family event so would love to get a head start
Okay got it. So I can still sell the car with a loan. Very helpful. It seems like I should just find a buyer who can buy both cars at a reasonable price. See what they can do with the loan & lease situation.
That is correct, you can sell your leased GLC300 to any dealer like carvana, carmax, or any local dealer.
But when you sell your MB lease you typically won’t get a separate check back for the MSDs. When you get your payoff from MBFS it will have the MSDs inlcuded; The payoff you see is lower than the real payoff by the amount of MSDs.
Sorry for the late response here but how do you deal with the MSDs? If I sell the MBS lease, the buyer will not pay for the MSDs? I did max MSDs so it will be a lot. Any way I ensure I get back the MSDs?
Read through our reviews. I’ve bought a lot of cars from people on the forum. We’re good at what we do. Loans will be paid off (whether it’s allowed for third party or not). You will only come out of pocket if there’s negative equity, otherwise we will pay the entire loan off and pay you any equity.
This should be something I discuss with the potential buyer correct? I see a payoff amount on MBSF and I believe it is the residual + fees - MSDs.
If I were to sell to a 3rd party buyer like carmax, carvana, what type of payment can I expect? Do they just write me a check on the difference between the payoff vs. their amount? I presume I will get some sort of payment because I have max MSDs in place.
Apologies if I sound a bit lost because I’m a bit lost to be honest! I plan to generate a google number and reach out to all those buyers by sometime tonight!
No, this is something you talk to mbfs about to determine if the buyout amount includes your msds or not.
The potential buyer does not have anything to do with this.
Your vehicle has a buyout price. Carmax/carvana/etc will offer a purchase price. If the purchase price is greater than the buyout price, youll get a check. If the purchase price is less than the buyout price, you will write a check.
If MBFS rolls the msds into the buyout price, the buyout price will be lower by the msds amount.
For example, lets say you have $5k in msds, your purchase offer from carvana is $40k and your buyout without msds rolled in is $42k.
If mbfs doesnt include the msds in the buyout, you would get a $5k check from mbfs but have to write a $2k check to carvana, netting $3k.
If mbfs does include the msds in the buyout, your post-msds buyout would be $37k ($42k-$5k) so Carvana would write you a check for $3k, netting $3k.
There is no situation where carvana has any idea about anything regarding your msds.
