Mercedes E-Class – An Ideal Business Proposition?
The new E-Class from Mercedes looks like it will fare well when it comes to resale. In Germany the car is expected to have the highest resale value in the entire luxury segment.
According to calculations by the market research institute Bähr & Fess Forecast in Saarbrücken, the new E 250 CDI will then realise up to 62.5 per cent of its current new price, and it has therefore received the accolade of “2009 value retention champion” awarded every year by the motoring magazine Auto-Bild.
Mercedes passenger cars occupy the peak positions in eight of the market segments analysed, and are therefore generally regarded as the cars with the highest value retention in Germany.
However, Parkers haven’t seen new prices for the E-Class yet and therefore cannot make an accurate prediction. However, Parkers would be surprised if the resale value is quite that high in the UK.
A spokesman from Parkers said, “ We currently put a BMW 525d SE at about 57% after 12 months/10,000 miles, so the mercedes E-Class might have the edge on the BMW there. At three years/30k (or three years/60k which would probably be more typical for this type of car. We believe that the E-Class may achieve north of 40% if the owner is lucky. Big cars are struggling to find bids at auction – or at least they were during the last few months of last year, and while January has been a better than expected month for the trade, there’s no strong evidence that this will change just yet. However, when all the car plant shutdowns have finished, we think manufacturers will be more prudent about numbers and targets, and it could result in values firming up in the future. It will probably happen in any case with only 1.7 million registrations forecast this year. There will be less used car stock around in 2012-2013.”
Simon McBride
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