Sold lease to Mercedes local dealer

Leased a Mercedes Benz C300 4matic in 2019 and sold it last month

MSRP 46XXX
Selling price 36000 (it was a retired loaner with 3800 miles)
Miles: 17000
Sold to MB dealer: 35500
Payoff: 31700
Net: 3800

MB won’t allow to sell lease to third party. But gladly the dealer matched my online offer from Carvana.
Maybe I could have done better in negotiation. The first dealer offered only 1000 net payment, so I signed it with the second dealer I visited who offered 3800 net payment.

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How did you make original contact? Did you go in or did you email? I’m not sure who to contact with my lease up in April. Vroom has me 8k over my buyout but it sounds like I can’t do that easily.

Don’t go in. Establish contact over email and/or phone.

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Thank you. Do you contact the sales team or is there a specific department. Sorry for the noob questions I couldn’t find it anywhere on the forum, everyone seems to have at least a basic understanding of how everything works.

Sometimes there is a specific department for “acquisitions” sometimes there isn’t which means perhaps the used car manager may be the point person.

If you call and say you want to sell your car (versus “trading in” which implies you are buying another car), any semi-intelligent receptionist should be able to route your call to the right person.

How many months did you have left on your lease when you sold it?

10days left

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Did you have any multiple security deposits with Mercedes Benz Financial?

No MSD to Mb financial

Did you not have an etf for ending the lease early? I have 3 payments left and I’m being told there is a Mercedes early termination fee on my lease. It’s 4 percent plus the $595 disposal fee.

Mercedes adds that 4% fee to the contract only in some states

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My lease was extended- so, I was not ending earlier.

Yes, there’s an early termination fee. That fee is waived if you have a Mercedes dealer buying out the lease, but correct you’ll pay it if you’re buying it out to sell elsewhere. REALLY puts a wrench into plans to buy out early to sell.

I just sold my leased C300. In my case with 5 payments left, the only way to come out positive was to sell to a Mercedes dealer; the added taxes + fees of buying it out easily ate all the equity I had in the car.

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If there was no equity, you should’ve kept it if you got another car.

They were still charging me the ETF even selling it to an MB dealer. It was baked into the payoff quote.

I didn’t say there was no equity. I said there wasn’t enough equity to overcome ~9% sales tax and Mercedes’ fees associated with buying out a lease early.

Ultimately my goal was to get out of my car, because I have something else on the way. If I could make a little money doing it, that’s great too. Just like the OP, I had a 2019 C300 – the market just isn’t particularly strong for a mass-produced car like that, especially one that is leased in huge numbers so there’s a constant flow of used cars available. With a dealer clearing out sales tax and fees, I could come out positive (even with 5 months left). But with paying sales tax and fees to buy it out and sell to a 3rd party (even private sale) I wouldn’t come out any further ahead.

That’s rough. It wasn’t the case for mine, so I assume this is optional on the dealer’s part?

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Definitely possible. The folks I was working with, while very nice, didn’t seem the most competent.

What state are you in if you don’t mind
Me asking?

Sold to a dealer in Massachusetts.

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