[honda_dude]

Believe it or not Shivjeet.. my friend took nearly 1 year to sell his porsche cayenne at his expected price which was frankly quite realistic. As it was a top of the line model with added extras, it took all the more effort to find an enthusiastic buyer for it as everyone does not want to spend extra bucks for the added options.

good luck with the sale brother

[amit_shimla]

We have another type of horror story here. More that 50% depreciation that too just in 3 years time. The same amount of money if kept in bank for invested smarty would have given better returns. I really do not know so asking here if we have concept of leasing high end cars in India.

[Lobogris]

Originally Posted by ksameer1234

That and your experience really makes me wonder why dealers are happy to let go of business opportunity so easily. Even surprising for such a long-term customer as you. Maybe dealers absolutely don't give two hoots about the relationship part. There are so many people who upgrade within the brand for the only reason of having good relationship with dealer, but this feeling is not reciprocated at all.

May be we customers shouldn't really bother to build relationship with dealers in hope that they will not treat us like just-another-guy in future. None of those sweets and gifts for RM during delivery and those tips after service, I guess.

The world has changed now-a-days. Be it a dealer or any other business, past relationship matters very little. All they care about is the amount of profit to be extracted from the current deal. A customer who has bought five cars over the past decade but strikes a good bargain leaving little profit is a bad customer while a new one giving a higher margin is now the best customer. Each sales rep, each manager and even the senior management are under pressure to maximise the margins and no regard is shown to loyalty or past relationships except in lip service.

[gunsho]

Reading the posts, it appears top notch luxury/performance cars don't have second hand market.

It is very unfortunate, for some reason, we end up in this situation, where we have to sell it within few years or purchase. Truth is, they are dealer. They are unfortunately not our brother/sister. The fact that, they are not willing to trade-in without a buyer lined up clearly says, they probably won't profit from this second hand sales. Worse is, they may lose their profit in the new car that they will be selling to you. Since they are doing business, they would have just calculated this P&L and take action on it.

While many people may not have spoken out, Shivjeet have nailed it correctly that, the depreciation is terrible in first few years. This is true across all cars in first few years, but its really terrible for super luxury cars or any car that sells in less quantity.

About lease, the rates are quite heavy in our market, but reading this thread and experiences of after market sales, that looks better. Because anyway we are going to lose that money, atleast lease is hassle free. If one has 1 Cr and have enough cashflow to maintain a 2 Cr car, lease market looks better than second hand market?

[McLaren Rulez]

The dealer not taking phone calls from the OP is a bit ridiculous! Yes, it's difficult to sell, it's a depreciation disaster etc. but I imagine our OP is more annoyed with the bad overall experience than the actual price.

If I were the dealer, I'd simply offer a lower price, explain politely why the price is low and take the risk or offload it to another dealer etc. A few well chosen words and actions could have prevented the relationship with a loyal customer from souring.

[GTO]

Originally Posted by Shivjeet

it's sick to see people posting pretty much the same thing again and again

If you post on an open forum, be open to receiving varied opinions, even those you don't agree with. Also, don't deride any BHPians by calling their replies / the discussion "sick". All of us have taken time out to reply to your thread. At the least, appreciate it.

Members could respond back saying that it's "sick" of you to not accept the discussion or the situation, but thankfully, no one has. BHPians have shown more courtesy to you than you have to them.

without reading my post properly or caring to understand it

I think most of us have understood the situation. You must take some effort to understand our replies...and also market realities before spending 2 crores on a car.

Does it look like I don't know that? Also do people really think I'm unaware of the used car market outside the "official" Mercedes benz certified and trade in program?

Nowhere in the original post have you mentioned any attempt to sell it yourself. That is usually the best way to get the highest price. If you're looking for advice, keep your ears open.

btw, the title has been edited by the mods according to their interpretation so not my fault since they've made it dealer centric

Use the 'report this post to a Moderator' functionality to suggest any title changes.

The reason for the post was only to share my experience

And we appreciate that .

When they sell you the car, you're shown all the benefits like how smoothly you can trade in your car "because we have easy trade-in options and certified pre-owned for a hassle free experience". All of this is done by companies like MB, Audi, BMW etc. just to gain customer confidence which leads into a sale and then later when we need a trade-in they offer absurd quotes!!

Manufacturers always promise the moon - reliability, ease of ownership etc. etc. It's up to the customer to be discerning. All I can say is caveat emptor!

"no one buys it because its petrol", you will obviously feel cheated

That's the ground reality. Unless they promised you a buyback at a certain price, they have no obligation to buy back your car or exchange it at a price you want.

Frankly, you yourself should have researched on the poor resale of:

1. Petrol SUVs in India.
2. High performance variants in a country obsessed with 4-cylinder diesel SUVs.
3. Cars that give 3 - 4 kmpl (or even lower) on petrol.

If anyone doesn't like such threads, no one is holding your hand to stick by and go through it.

I suggest you watch the tone you use on Team-BHP. This is NOT the kind of a post that we permit. I could counter your post by saying that if you don't have an open mind, don't create such threads and so on, but will refrain from doing so.

[veedub89]

EDIT: GTO's post above pretty much sums up everything. Mods, you may delete my post if it does not add to what has been said already.

I have got to agree with the sentiment most people have expressed here.
You should consider holding on to the car for some more time and try and sell off the car yourself. With a car like yours, you won't find a buyer that easily, but when you do, you will get the price you want because for the buyer there will be very limited number of options available. I mean, how many GL 63s are there in India anyways?

Since you want to trade it off with the GLS 400 and not something radically different than the GL 63, I don't think any extra time that you spend with your car should be a big issue. I may be wrong here but just sharing my thoughts as to how I would look at things if I were in your position.

I had to hold on to my Jetta (the first gen sold in India) for close to 4 months before I could sell it off. But when I found a buyer, he offered me almost double the amount I was being offered earlier. It was almost bang on the amount of money I was expecting. The guy wanted that specific Jetta model.

[Strangerintown]

Originally Posted by amit_shimla

We have another type of horror story here. More that 50% depreciation that too just in 3 years time. The same amount of money if kept in bank for invested smarty would have given better returns. I really do not know so asking here if we have concept of leasing high end cars in India.

Which vehicle are you referring to. Except for a few select vehicles, most (and all high end vehicles) would see a 50% depreciation in three years. Further, you cannot compare a car to a fixed deposit. A car is not a financial investment of any sort. It is a (strongly) depreciating asset and should be considered as such. The value of the car is in the convenience and pleasure it offers and not in its financial worth. In fact, a pure head only calculation would show that using hired cars would make greater sense for most people than owning them.

[amit_shimla]

Originally Posted by Strangerintown

Which vehicle are you referring to. Except for a few select vehicles, most (and all high end vehicles) would see a 50% depreciation in three years. Further, you cannot compare a car to a fixed deposit. A car is not a financial investment of any sort. It is a (strongly) depreciating asset and should be considered as such. The value of the car is in the convenience and pleasure it offers and not in its financial worth. In fact, a pure head only calculation would show that using hired cars would make greater sense for most people than owning them.

The vehicle in question here is the GL63 AMG. I agree that any vehicle in a depreciating asset and its is definitely about the quality time spent with the vehicle and your loved ones. However, from the very beginning of this thread only monetary values are being discussed and hence I made a point too.

[CarJunki]

I have been monitoring other threads also about ownership of niche cars just to learn from the current owners.

As this is about trade-in transaction, is or was there any written agreement or contract that dealer/MBIL with take this particular vehicle back and did that paperwork have any methods of calculating the value when needed?
If there was no such contract, what is this all about?

[scwagh]

Hi Shivjeet, I happened to meet the POC Procurement incharge of a MB dealership today. I had seen your thread and asked his opinion, whether he would buy a GL63 AMG and his reply was an absolute no. The reason was the same as what has been discussed thread bare here, limited prospective buyers. When asked if the seller was a MB loyalist, what would he do in that case. He said his approach in that case would be to have an agreement of Park and Sell. They would park the vehicle in their facility and try to scout for buyers and take a commission on sale as and when it happens.

Would suggest that you explore this option with your dealer, in addition to trying to sell it on your own. I hope that your local dealer won’t have an issue to park the vehicle at their facility and try to sell it (for a pre agreed commission), meanwhile you can also try and scout (discretely) for sellers on your own through website and all such options as suggested above.

[COMMUTER]

Can you tell us the resale price that you feel would have felt appropriate? You required an ultimate vehicle to position yourself at a certain point of exclusivity in the eyes of an average Joe. You would be required to foot the bill.

The reason why this price is not meeting your 'expectation' is because of it being a 'sleeper car' to the highest extent . Contrasting your experience with the case where the Baleno got sold off as MB A-class, the emphasis the buyer of a high priced used car places on the looks of the car is apparent.

You have a cult classic which is in my dream choice list, given enough cash to burn. In my current mind set, I might be preferring an entry level Unimog when my cash flows meet my requirement( an used one 100%☺). If you wish to be firm on replacing that then I feel that it's only appropriate that you put up with the money you need to spend to keep it out of your sight.

I do believe that one of the reasons you are trying to opt for a 'more practical' option is because you might be trying to mitigate your depreciative hit and higher maintenance cost.

If that's so, then its a classic case of deciding to 'keep or replace'. The answer is usually 'keep' from the financial point of view.

Any investment of that magnitude should require an exit plan at its onset. When you bought it you should have assumed that you would be taking a huge hit in depreciation unless you, and a number of your generations after you, drive it to scrap and make it an vintage heirloom which would regain its lost value in terms of both depreciation and inflation!

If you are in a position where you need not bother about those chump-change trivial things, you make my black skin go green!☺

[v12]

I believe the GL63 has already been put on sale on our Classifieds.

Expected price : Rs. 10,500,000

http://classifieds.team-bhp.com/buy-...GL-Class.html/

[Turbanator]

A couple of things from my side, our Forum is unique, period. Persons from different professional & financial backgrounds contribute immensely and no one tries to show or feel smarter or rich than anyone else. Any guys who feel and behave differently are reminded by Mods and most correct themselves or else are taken off. Mods do a much bigger role in maintaining quality, contents, and language which is hard to find anywhere else. Even though I have met only a few members but somehow I feel that I know most of them for ages.

When we post any query or say a new thread with our grievances, the idea is to get what others think about it and what can be a possible solution to that issue. Now, we may think that the views or suggestions of others are not valid or not reasonable or even amateurish but that's the beauty of this forum. We need to pick the most valid solution and try to see if that helps.

Now, coming to this particular issue, I know you keep your Vehicles for long and unlike many others including me, you don't flip these every Year. So you are not that rich Kid who will have something new to show off in a while You have raised some valid points which seem to have got lost in between due to some other reasons.

Luxury Cars do lose a lot here in India, there are multiple reasons, wealth being unequally spread is one major reason I can think of. Anyone looking to buy (and afford running & maintenance) an M or AMG is looking at new Car, 99 % of the time on his business name and will like to claim full depreciation and expenses. That's not going to happen so easily on the Old Luxury Car barring some vehicles which serve a particular segment, say you will always get a higher resale on Toyota LC over a 7 series or S-Class everything else being equal or I will say even if LC is abused, people will still pay higher than a luxury sedan.

Unfortunately, the SUV in Question is something which has the least appeal in the market and most likely its total sales here would have been less than 10 in India due to multiple reasons. Had you bought a G-Class it would have gone much faster and at higher rates. That's the reason, we have multiple threads here on which car to buy. But you must have your own reasons to pick this particular model just that others don't agree to this and it will be a while before you find someone which has a taste or a liking similar to yours. Knowing how you feel about your vehicles, I don't think you will even allow anyone to take a drive before discussing commercials, so parking and selling at Dealership is out of the question.

There can be only a few solutions to this issue to me, try to discuss a price with MB Dealer and give the car to him, they can pay you when they sell with say a maximum period and it won't be your concern at what rates they sell. So say, they agree to 80 Lac, they will pay you but only at the time of sales or whatever maximum time you settled. Alternatively, you continue to hold the car and keep the word in your circle and also post on portals like OLX, surprisingly I sold 2 of my cars recently via OLX. They don't share your number and you can chat with prospective buyers but there will be many low ballers so be prepared. However, I am not sure if you are aware, nowadays GST @ 18 % will be applicable to Old Car sales also, so do factor a large hit due to this also. Do have a look here

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...ml#post4344031

Finally, all such experiences of losing money and behavior of Dealerships and manufacturers do make you a better( sensible) man and even the guys like me who think with heart start using brain more often.

[heydj]

Originally Posted by Shivjeet

If the post is read properly, it shouldn't look like a "ranting thread" rather a thread about my terrible experience and dissatisfaction with a brand's practices.

As your post is so frank and straightforward I am assuming you wouldn't mind me saying so - Your post does look like a ranting thread though informative.

Why rant?

Because we all assumed you are not living under a rock and fully understand getting dealer to give you best price is quite unrealistic especially since he has to do what is best for his business.

Why Informative?

When going for luxury products its a basic assumption service will be top class and so would be user experience. But looks like that reasoning is flawed.

For this dealer & company I can safely say they lost a repeat customer. Ultimately for want of 20-30 Lakhs they lost business worth crores over the years. Do tell this to company management.