Mercedes Benz new price list

Ice_Box

C Class
C200 cdi was €48,630 now €39,900


E Class
E220 cdi was €61,170 now €45,480

E92

Holy Funk is all I can say:eek:!

copacetic

wow! no wonder they have been slashing prices lately on second hand ones..

E92

Well now it was hardly a co-incidence now was it, or am I just being cynical again:rolleyes:;)?

copacetic

well that is what I am saying. Big changes here, lexus, audi and merc have now all reduced their prices on top of vrt changes. Personally I think this will prevent BMW taking market share from them.

Fun to see all the 07s on carzone which are now dearer than a brand new one!

Ice_Box

CLK 220 cdi Elegance
was €64,415 now €46,460
thats a €17,990 drop
Is that the biggest one we've seen?
Price wars rule!

E92

Well obviously that's how they were able to find these imaginary savings.

BMW being first out of the traps by announcing their July prices in April will mean that their sales for this year will be very strong once July arrives. Indeed as AudiChris testified here before people went for BMW over Audi/Merc for precisely that reason, and that includes people who wouldn't normally choose BMW.

I'm sure BMW will be privately rubbing their hands with glee when they see their rivals selling cars at huge losses compared to them;). BMW still have massive running cost advantages in their favour over Merc, CO2 will very quickly become the new engine size, and BMW delivers here in spades, and CO2 is of course another way of measuring frugality too.

It does raise a very important point though, how come when there wasn't that much pressure before Merc were able to charge such high prices? I mean the E220 was €7k dearer than the 520d, and now it's cheaper, even though the 520d offers superior emissions(136g/km vs 160 g/km), is 2 VRT bands lower than the Merc while before was in an identical VRT band?

In Germany the E220 CDI Classic is presently €41,055. That is with a lower VAT rate as well(19 rather than 21%), and no VRT that I know of. Yet here the same car is €45,480, and we have 21 rather than 19% VAT, and 24% VRT thrown on top of that as well.

Merc are actually selling the E220 CDI for a pre VRT price of approximately €35,500. There were selling it for a pre VRT price of approximately €44,300. If they sell 1000 E220 CDIs next year, and now that the E-class is nearly as cheap as it is in its native Germany, that would be an easily attainable figure, that would mean that this move will have cost them no less than €8.8 million per annum and possibly more as the more affordable something becomes, the more people will buy it:eek:.

And they have to pay the importing company MDL too(well MDL are not a charity service surprisingly enough), an added cost that BMW doesn't have, and Audi won't have from October.

Who said that the manufacturers would seize the VRT changes to jack up the prices:D?

This is not be good for dealers, especially Merc ones but it is fantastic news for everyone else I kid you not;)!

copacetic

Heres one for you, some merc dealers have been advertising 'buy now save 5k' deals etc, these prices mean that it wasn't true. If someone bought would they have a comeback?

eg:
http://www.carzone.ie/used-cars/Mercedes-Benz/C-180/K-Avantgarde/1061523/

"Buy before July and save 2355"



Really? It is actually come down to €42,349!!
So the ad should really read

"Buy before July and lose 8,000"

E92

If you click on the "Vehicle Price Lists" section here you can download the most up to date prices for before July, so that we can make any comparisons necessary.

-Chris-

There could be a big backlash against Merc for that kind of advertising, but in all honesty the dealers are kept pretty much in the dark about the changes.

They're in SERIOUS trouble with their used stock too - that's going to decimate values of certain cars.

I need to look at my deals on Monday morning and see what I have being traded in to me - I may need to re-negotiate some of the trade-in values based on this.

Great news for consumers though - and proof if any was needed that dealers/importers aren't sitting back and creaming customers for all they're worth. It's proper dog-eat-dog out there.

copacetic

AudiChris wrote: »

There could be a big backlash against Merc for that kind of advertising, but in all honesty the dealers are kept pretty much in the dark about the changes.

They're in SERIOUS trouble with their used stock too - that's going to decimate values of certain cars.

I need to look at my deals on Monday morning and see what I have being traded in to me - I may need to re-negotiate some of the trade-in values based on this.

Great news for consumers though - and proof if any was needed that dealers/importers aren't sitting back and creaming customers for all they're worth. It's proper dog-eat-dog out there.

Agree that dealers were in the dark Chris, but then they shouldn't be advertising as if they know what is going to happen.

How will Audi see it? Can't be happy?

A c180k avantgarde wasn't competitive against the new A4 1.8T sport pre July. Now it looks like a better value deal post July, even with the extra audi knocked off the top.

As you say the best deals will probably come on the second hand market...

E92

I'd say anyone who bought a new Merc within the last 6 months will be seriously p1ssed off that the same car is now up to 15k less, especially when Merc caught us all on the hop with this one. This obviously has huge ramifications in the used car market for Merc.

A lot of Merc customers will have lost some money if they try and trade in their cars now....

Re market share: what will save Audi and BMW is a) they have legions of loyal buyers and b) they are the best of the lot for CO2, particularly BMW, though Audi are pretty much as good as them bar the A6 and certain variants of the A4 and A5(1.8T and the minority demand 6 pot petrols), which as I say will quickly become the new Irish obsession with engine size, and Merc may be competitive new, but road tax etc will stand against them.

What is very irritating from the Merc point of view is that the more efficient BlueEfficiency models which match BMW/Audi for CO2 won't make it to RHD till 2010 at the earliest. They do have a lot of hybrids on the way of course but hybrids are very expensive as we already know, no longer have a 50% VRT rebate and again won't be here till around 2010.

copacetic

I think some must have seen this coming, I mentioned on the other thread chris started about merc prices that a BMW sales guy told me that Merc dealers were putting second hand models out to trade. Looks like that was true and we now know why..

dunno if it is true, but apparently some merc dealers are putting their cars into the trade rather than holding and selling them themselves. This is killing the prices non-merc garages can offer and flooding the market. This came from a bmw dealer who told me they aren't accepting merc e series as trade ins a the moment as they can't sell them on..

pinch of salt i guess.

I'm taking back that pinch of salt!

-Chris-

If they knew and misled, then the fallout will be worse again

Big problem with this is that the german brands sell themselves on rock-solid residual values as well as high quality. Moves like this (or the changes in general brought on by the change in VRT) stand to seriously harm that reputation!

-Chris-

Does anyone have the ability to do a before and after price list from this info, even for the major models?

copacetic

E92 wrote: »

I'd say anyone who bought a new Merc within the last 6 months will be seriously p1ssed off that the same car is now up to 15k less, especially when Merc caught us all on the hop with this one. This obviously has huge ramifications in the used car market for Merc.

A lot of Merc customers will have lost some money if they try and trade in their cars now....

What will save Audi and BMW is a) they have legions of loyal buyers and b) they are the best of the lot for CO2, particularly BMW, though Audi are pretty much as good as them bar the A6 and certain variants of the A4 and A5(1.8T and the minority demand 6 pot petrols), which as I say will quickly become the new Irish obsession with engine size, and Merc may be competitive new, but road tax etc will stand against them.

What is very irritating from the Merc point of view is that the more efficient BlueEfficiency models which match BMW/Audi for CO2 won't make it to RHD till 2010 at the earliest. They do have a lot of hybrids on the way of course but hybrids are very expensive as we already know, no longer have a 50% VRT rebate and again won't be here till around 2010.

No sure it will 'save' them E. I think the prices Lexus and Merc have brought out makes them more competitive post July than they were pre July. They would previously have been out of reach for a lot of Audi and BMW buyers. Now they are well within reach.

Even with higher tax I'd expect them to sell more cars and pick up market share. Maybe not a big pick up but some at least.

Its clear to me that the companies aren't just concerned about market share and vrt, they are concerned that people won't spend the money in the current economic conditions and hoping to drum up some business.

Whether it will backfire with people who have bought in last 3 years unable to change because they are in negative equity on their current cars we will have to wait and see.

The BMW guy that told be about not taking E classes gave an example of a guy in a 2 year old E class ~ 65k new, He was being offered 30k as trade in some places and others wouldn't take it for any money. He still had 45k of finance outstanding on it...

E92

In fairness the recent extensive advertising about big price drops was a subtle hint that they were going to be dropping prices, but I don't think anyone would have expected them to go down by that much, certainly there can't have been too many people who knew this was coming.

I wonder could this be Merc's equivalent of Citroen Cashback offer a few years ago(for those who don't know/remember Citroen started selling their cars with big cashback offers(forced on Citroen Ireland by Citroen HQ in France) and the net result was that their market share evaporated in Ireland and was an utter disaster)?

copacetic

AudiChris wrote: »

Does anyone have the ability to do a before and after price list from this info, even for the major models?

see E92s link, old prices still on Merc site.

copacetic

E92 wrote: »

In fairness the recent extensive advertising about big price drops was a subtle hint that they were going to be dropping prices, but I don't think anyone would have expected them to go down by that much, certainly there can't have been too many people who knew this was coming.

I wonder could this be Merc's equivalent of Citroen Cashback offer a few years ago(for those who don't know/remember Citroen started selling their cars with big cashback offers(forced on Citroen Ireland by Citroen HQ in France) and the net result was that their market share evaporated in Ireland and was an utter disaster)?

Don't think so E, BMW/Audi/Lexus second hand prices are taking a hammering too. The same would apply to them if that was the case.

-Chris-

copacetic wrote: »

They would previously have been out of reach for a lot of Audi and BMW buyers. Now they are well within reach.

Even with higher tax I'd expect them to sell more cars and pick up market share. Maybe not a big pick up but some at least.

I'm wondering if Merc needed to do something this drastic to maintain/increase market share...
BMW and Audi are direct competitors, they have similar brand ambitions and aim for the same market demographic. For a lot of the people I meet they never mention Merc, only BMW and maybe Lexus or Volvo/Saab.
Merc stands on it's own as a brand - it might seem a little fuddy-duddy, but it stands alone as the only proper mass market luxury brand.

By doing this Merc are positioning themselves to do "battle" with BMW and Audi, but I don't think their customers ever seriously consider buying an A6 or 5-Series before buying their 8th E-Class...

By doing this Merc are damaging their two brand separators - exclusivity (they were always a little more expensive than the competition) and residuals.

E92

There's no doubting that Merc will sell more cars than before copacetic.

However that's a bit like saying that BMW's worldwide sales for 2007 were better than they were for 2006, which they were. Audi and Merc however increased their sales by more than BMW, in other words BMW has been losing market share relative to Audi and Merc for about 10 years, even though the last 10 years were the years BMW sold more cars than ever before.

And I would argue that the same thing will happen here except it will be Merc rather than BMW that this is happening to.

They will have seriously p1ssed off their customers with this. A €17k drop is enormous.

I know BMW and Audi made huge changes too but BMW told people last December that they would pass on any savings and announced July prices over 2 months ago. That makes quite a difference in terms of looking after your customers I would argue, and anyone who bought a new BMW this year before July that does very well out of VRT has no-one to blame but themselves for not researching it.

AudiChris wrote: »

Big problem with this is that the German brands sell themselves on rock-solid residual values as well as high quality. Moves like this (or the changes in general brought on by the change in VRT) stand to seriously harm that reputation!

Well the only thing there is that everyone else has done the same thing thus far, and others have gone beyond our expectations for VRT cuts. Everyone is in the same boat. It can't affect the Germans and somehow not affect everyone else.

The German 3 series outsells the Mondeo in the UK. It still is as desirable as it ever was and still has fantastic depreciation over there. The other premium German brands also sell in much higher volumes than before and still sell for lots more in the used car market.

Once the market gets used to the VRT changes I would expect that the German brands will continue to be as desirable as they've always been to Irish buyers used.

-Chris-

copacetic wrote: »

see E92s link, old prices still on Merc site.

Yeah, but I'm trying to get them side-by-side. If they were in Excel I'd do a vlookup and have them, but I don't think I can do that from .pdf.

I'm a lazy, lazy man...

copacetic

E92 wrote: »

I know BMW and Audi made huge changes too but BMW told people last December that they would pass on any savings and announced July prices over 2 months ago. That makes quite a difference in terms of looking after your customers I would argue, and anyone who bought a new BMW this year before July that does very well out of VRT has no-one to blame but themselves for not researching it.

Well we may have known last December, but BMW dealers weren't telling customers! How else would they sell any cars.

I do business with a guy who bought a 520d in January and there have been a few posts here about similar people who bought and were very shocked to find out they could have saved ~10k if they had waited a few months.

Maybe they have no-one to blame in your opinion, but they will be blaming BMW and their dealers.

-Chris-

copacetic wrote: »

Well we may have known last December, but BMW dealers weren't telling customers! How else would they sell any cars.

I do business with a guy who bought a 520d in January and there have been a few posts here about similar people who bought and were very shocked to find out they could have saved ~10k if they had waited a few months.

Maybe they have no-one to blame in your opinion, but they will be blaming BMW and their dealers.

I think any salesperson who sold cars earlier this year under false pretenses played a very dangerous game and stands to lose a customer for the sake of a pre-July sale.

I'd rather tell a customer eyeball-to-eyeball that prices were dropping and to come back to me in July than lie to them and get a sale now.

Those sharp practices are what give sales a bad reputation, and when it comes down to it, making those kinds of decisions are pretty amoral - that you would put a person (a real human being, with kids and mortgage etc. etc.) in a position where they'll spend 10K more than necessary and face serious negative-equity so you can pocket a couple of hundred quid in comission (pre-tax) is absolutely dispicable in my eyes.

But I'm waaaaay OT at the mo...

</rant>

E92

As reported by yourself in the VRT thread copacetic on the 19th of December 2007:

copacetic wrote: »

interesting quote from BMW marketing director Michael Nugent in todays times, who says the brand is committed to passing on savings:

You then go on to quote the following from the Irish Times on that day - a paper read by over 117,000 people:

Michael Nugent, BMW's marketing director says the brand is committed to passing on the savings.

I don't know how much more public BMW could have made a commitment the subsequently honoured really short of sticking up a poster at every garage and then leaving dealers with no sales for 6 months. It's certainly not like BMW were out there trying to deceive the public when BMW Ireland is telling people what they're up to in 6 months time before the new car sales rush and all.

I'm not criticising you - some people will believe that the earth is still flat I'm sure and I wouldn't trust what most dealers would say as far as I would throw them. But when you're spending upwards of €30-50k on something you really have to do your homework. I have no sympathy, none whatsoever for those who will just simply spend a huge amount of money on something, be it cars, house extensions etc without researching the thing before making a decision. I'm interested in Golf(the Sport:D), but I don't know every last detail in the same way I know about cars. I know a lot of the brands, but I don't know if Callaway make the best overall set or not. I don't know what clubs are the best for somebody whose short game isn't the best etc. Therefore, if I were buying a set of Golf clubs, I go and research it, I would give your forum a visit;)! And so the same thing goes with cars.

In any event BMW's sales this year are down by nearly 50%(they only sold 96 cars in May, last May it was nearly 10 times that amount), so clearly a lot of people did know and heeded BMW's own statements.

I apologise in advance for going WAAAY off topice to the Moderators:D!

copacetic

E92 wrote: »

As reported by yourself in the VRT thread copacetic on the 19th of December 2007:


You then go on to quote the following from the Irish Times on that day - a paper read by over 117,000 people:


I don't know how much more public BMW could have made a commitment the subsequently honoured really short of sticking up a poster at every garage and then leaving dealers with no sales for 6 months. It's certainly not like BMW were out there trying to deceive the public when BMW Ireland is telling people what they're up to in 6 months time before the new car sales rush and all.

In any event BMW's sales this year are down by nearly 50%(they only sold 96 cars in May, last May it was nearly 10 times that amount), so clearly a lot of people did know and heeded BMW's own statements.

but thats what I said E, we knew and people who take an interest knew. BMW Ireland weren't 'telling' people. They told a couple of reporters. More people probably found out via the threads on boards than any other way. Why not full page ads in the paper beside all the ads for overpriced second hand 07 and 08 cars?

One thing for sure, BMW dealers weren't telling people buying a 520d. I'm not saying I expect more, I don't. BMW dealers are no better or worse than anyone else imo.

How you can dissasociate BMW from their dealers I don't know?

philtaylor

Whats the story with cash discounts come July. Was thinking because demand will be so high on some models it could be hard to get even a couple of percentage of. I wonder how tight margins are now on some of those entry level cdi's?

E220 cdi Germany 41 k Ireland 45 k. Difference 4k.

520d Germany 37k Ireland Post July 47k. Difference 10k

Wonder could you get another 7-10% of for cash on the BMW now's as there margin looks huge now.

I think with the thanks of VRT changes and the help of Mercedes, Audi, BMW I think we can easily avoid a recession.

-Chris-

copacetic wrote: »

More people probably found out via the threads on boards than any other way.

I gotta say, I learned more about this whole thing here than either from the press or Audi or my employer!!! I owe a debt of gratitude to the contributors of this forum, I can answer any question any customer throws at me and I know exactly what's going on in the wide, wide world of motors.

copacetic

philtaylor wrote: »

Whats the story with cash discounts come July. Was thinking because demand will be so high on some models it could be hard to get even a couple of percentage of. I wonder how tight margins are now on some of those entry level cdi's?

well that is what the dealers wil say anyway, but hold out for it. there will still be plenty of competition between the brands.

pburns

copacetic wrote: »

The BMW guy that told be about not taking E classes gave an example of a guy in a 2 year old E class ~ 65k new, He was being offered 30k as trade in some places and others wouldn't take it for any money. He still had 45k of finance outstanding on it...

This is gonna effect the whole market. As a BMW saleman said to me (well he would of course:rolleyes:) the price drops for the prestige marques are so much more dramatic for the German prestige brands that they're starting to look great value compared to the volume makes (where maybe 3 grand has been knocked off the likes of a diesel Mondeo, Mazda 6 etc.)

However leaving aside the neg. equity/VRT changes (and putting my Eddie Hobbs hat on), I find it hard to have sympathy with the guy who borrows >€45 grand on a €65 grand E-class:rolleyes:. Gob****e:p! i'm a bit old-school when it comes to easy credit!

E92 wrote: »

The German 3 series outsells the Mondeo in the UK. It still is as desirable as it ever was and still has fantastic depreciation over there. The other premium German brands also sell in much higher volumes than before and still sell for lots more in the used car market.

Once the market gets used to the VRT changes I would expect that the German brands will continue to be as desirable as they've always been to Irish buyers used.

The Germans are pulling off the impossible - maintaining a prestige aura whilst chasing volume and selling by the transporter load. Saab, Alfa and a few others are messing up big time by not having credible alternatives for those who don't want to follow the herd.

Traumadoc

Mercedes customer service imo is dreadful, did not even stamp the book when I got service there. I traded the ML for a 5 series, BMW made you feel that they wanted your business, customer service is excellent.