Yes. I was not planning to trade it. The day My C300 arived, my wife made a huge issue about us being one garage short,and one of the cars having to stay outside.
She said if it stays outside, I might as well trade it away because it will begin to take damage outside, and she was right.The new garage wont be ready for another year, so I had to choose a car to trade in. I just finished thehuge expensive restoration on the 190, so it had to be the CLK. I love the CLK, and my eyes teared up a bit while cleaning it. That car got me through college,to work, and all the other bull I had to do during the last ten years.It felt weird, to buy a car, run the odometer over twice doing nothing but work and school like a taxi, then take it back old and used.It was like taking a loyal dog to have it put down; it was terrible. I was so busy during the last decade that I felt like the engine never completely cooled down between trips. I sure did appreciate that car.


They gave me a fair trade considering the astronomical mileage.
Have you considered giving your C280 to the kids and getting yourself a C300?

Blue

 

I thought about giving the C280 to one of my kids. The only thing is I have a 20 year old in College.They cant bring a car and there is no where to park. Also giving a 20 year old Frat boy a Mercedes to drive while living at college. I can see them grades of his going south. My daughter is still a little young yet(16) and she wants a SLK 230,320 or 32 AMG.(Her boyfriend wants her to get a SLK 55 AMG) Kids think money just grows on trees.We will see maybe in a couple years when she is about 18. It would make a good graduation gift.As for now with the economy soo bad and the car having only 75k on it I dont really see the point of trading in just yet. Maybe in the next year or so.

 

Leasing a vehicle depends on what you are doing with your money. By that I mean, if you want the smallest payment possible, a lease may be the way to go.

Manufacturers like to have people lease a vehicle, because they know the buying cycle and will have an opportunity to keep you in the make, and they know you will have to make a decision in whatever your lease term is.

A lease works like this. As an example, if you have a 36 month lease, you will be making a payment based on the price of the vehicle, subtracting the residual value. The residual value is basically what the vehicle will be worth 3 years from when you purchase. This is what has Chrysler in trouble, they overvalued the residual values, meaning at the end of the lease, people were returning the vehicles, and they were worth quite a bit less than what the vehicle was actually worth.

So, in a lease, you may be able to drive a brand new vehicle with a monthly payment substantially lower than a purchase. When you purchase a vehicle, lets say a 60 month term, you have to pay off the entire vehicle within that timeframe. In a lease, you are essentially making payments on the spread of purchase price to residual. If the purchase price is $40,000, and the residual value is $28,000, you will be making payements in these 3 years of $12,000. 40,000 - 28,000 = 12,000/36 months for payment. You will also be paying interest in the lease, they call that the "money factor".

Some benefits of the lease, are that if you have an accident, and do not have a clear title, you don't need to worry about the 'value' of the car, you simply turn in the vehicle at the end of a lease. If you find yourself buying a new vehicle in the US average trade cycle of around 3 years, the lease makes sense...unless you mile up a vehicle. That is the downside to a lease...except! If you buy your mileage up front, you can buy it cheaper than it cost if you exceed the mileage. Even if you drive 25,000 miles per year, you can lease, purchase the mileage up front, and still come ahead in some ways. Here is an example. If you drive a vehicle for 3 years, and have 75,000 miles on the vehicle, obviously your trade in value will be affected. Lets say the difference between a 36,000 mile vehicle (12,000 miles per year us average), and your trade in w/75,000 miles...the trade difference will be thousands of dollars. So, it may be a preference to your driving habits, and the psychology of owning something rather than 'renting' it.

You have4 options available at the end of the lease. You have the right to purchase the vehicle from Mercedes Financial at the end of your term for the residual value. If you have taken extremely good care of the vehicle, and the vehicle is in high demand, you can sell the vehicle for whatever you can get for it, pay the lease term off and residual. Your other options, are to drive the vehicle to the dealership at the end of your lease, and hand them the keys and walk away, and the final solution is to lease again. There are pull ahead programs that manufacturers put out to get people to lower their buying cycle from 3 years to 2.5 years etc. If you are leasing, and have less than 6 months on your current lease, often times you can get into another lease on a brand new vehicle, and they will 'buy' the remaining lease payments for you to do so.

Personally, I am not a lease type. I believe that when I buy a vehicle, I am going to keep it 10 years or longer, and take care of the vehicle as such. I just like the ownership part of a car. However, when I look at my buying habits, I have never owned a car more than 3.5 years, and I would have saved myself some money.

Hope this helps - Internet Sales Manager/Director Automotive Dealership

 

Well I bought it last week, but have not had time to drive it yet. I know I need tolet it run at leastonce a week.

 

How many miles have you put on it. Get some pics when you get time?

 

Just at 100 miles. It doesnt seem right because I have only driven home from the dealer, and to the video store. I have been driving the 190E to work and everywhere else for the last two weeks.

Something else, I getcompliments on the 190E almost every day, even from strangers, and especially young women. The car has always been that way, and I never really understood it.Inversly, I drove the CLK for eight years to college and work, and no one even mentioned it, except on the last day I owned it, just before I sold it. No one knows I bought a C300 either; I only plan to drive it on Saturdays to take my dreamgirl/wife to breakfast andshopping.

 

The C300 is...different. It handles like a WSC car, and has plenty of power, more than the CLK. Drivingwith the computer's assistance in braking acceleration and handling is different...Instead of directly driving the vehicle like in old school days (190E) where the gaspedal was connected to the throttle directly by a cable, its like being a manager and delegating the finer details. It definitely seems to respond to your commands, but in saying that, you have to be firm in your commands or there may be misinterpretation. For example, the actual throttle has an indirect response to the gas pedal, and the engine has the ability to either idle-down or really give a surge of power on its own. So in shifting manually, I have found that letting the RPMs fall back slightly too far during gear change triggers an idle-down effect, as if the car is expecting me to slow down, when actually I am planning to shift up and accelerate.The result is a rev mismatched gear change and a weak acceleration, which would nothappen if I had direct control of the throttle.I am learning to hold the rpm, giving no indication of slowing to trigger an idle-down effect. Its like training a hound, there can be no abiguity or uncertain moves.The car is attempting to quickly anticipate my commands, so I haveto learn how to let it know what my next move will be. In this case, when I would normally allow the rpms to fall back 1000rpms for a rev matched gear change,I feel like the car is thinking (what is he doing,he is going to press the brake now, and kills the power). A fall back of 500 is too little , but somewhere between 800 and 900 fall back in rpms during gear change lets the computer know I want to GO, and the power is all there. So I am still learning to coordinate with this car.