The sub £1k Merc S500
Discussion
BlueHave said:
silentbrown said:
jke11y said:
No "Mercedes" in the title. No wonder I couldn't find it 
From the Golden age of Rust of Mercedes from 99-05
eBay said:
Question & Answer Answered On
Q: Hi, I am very interested in your car. How much would you take for it? Cash and collection straight away. Not a timewaster as there are many on here. Many thanks 26-May-16
A: I don't have a buy it now price as I want to drive it around for a week. Cheers, ben.
Q: Hi How's it going How much cash and contact number please will buy today thanks 25-May-16
A: Thanks, however I only bought it on Saturday, thinking it had an MOT. I would like to drive it around for a week before selling wearing Fancy dress. Lederhosen might be a bit sweaty in this weather so I might ask my wife If I can borrow something Floaty and Floral. Owning an S500 does wonders for one's self confidence. Thanks, good luck in the auction, Ben.
Q: How much would you let it go for if i was to collect it as it is? On 25/05/2016, 15:40, sportsmasochist wrote: Re: nznx-0 has sent a question about item #112007638209, ending on 04-Jun-16 15:05:41 BST - S500 Spares or repair Thanks, But I'd rather let the auction run. Cheers. 25-May-16
A: I haven't got a buy it now price as I want to drive it for a week. I bought it last weekend and love it, but sadly I do not have the time or skills to fix it. I'll lose money on it anyway I am sure, so I want to smoke around feeling like I'm a mid 90's Turf Accountant or something. Thanks, Ben.
Q: Hi can offer 200 cash and collect it as it is 25-May-16
A: Thanks, But I'd rather let the auction run. Cheers.
Q: Hello mate, I'm interested in your car, can I have your phone number please ? Also how much do you want for it ? Thanks 25-May-16
A: Hi Mate, I'll let the auction run as I want to drive it for 10 days. If you look at the Pistonheads thread you will see I paid £1,225 for it last week, I have no idea what it is really worth! I'll post lots of photos tonight of all the grubby/rusty bits so it's easier to put a value on it. Cheers, Ben.
Q: Hi, I am very interested in your car. How much would you take for it? Cash and collection straight away. Not a timewaster as there are many on here. Many thanks 26-May-16
A: I don't have a buy it now price as I want to drive it around for a week. Cheers, ben.
Q: Hi How's it going How much cash and contact number please will buy today thanks 25-May-16
A: Thanks, however I only bought it on Saturday, thinking it had an MOT. I would like to drive it around for a week before selling wearing Fancy dress. Lederhosen might be a bit sweaty in this weather so I might ask my wife If I can borrow something Floaty and Floral. Owning an S500 does wonders for one's self confidence. Thanks, good luck in the auction, Ben.
Q: How much would you let it go for if i was to collect it as it is? On 25/05/2016, 15:40, sportsmasochist wrote: Re: nznx-0 has sent a question about item #112007638209, ending on 04-Jun-16 15:05:41 BST - S500 Spares or repair Thanks, But I'd rather let the auction run. Cheers. 25-May-16
A: I haven't got a buy it now price as I want to drive it for a week. I bought it last weekend and love it, but sadly I do not have the time or skills to fix it. I'll lose money on it anyway I am sure, so I want to smoke around feeling like I'm a mid 90's Turf Accountant or something. Thanks, Ben.
Q: Hi can offer 200 cash and collect it as it is 25-May-16
A: Thanks, But I'd rather let the auction run. Cheers.
Q: Hello mate, I'm interested in your car, can I have your phone number please ? Also how much do you want for it ? Thanks 25-May-16
A: Hi Mate, I'll let the auction run as I want to drive it for 10 days. If you look at the Pistonheads thread you will see I paid £1,225 for it last week, I have no idea what it is really worth! I'll post lots of photos tonight of all the grubby/rusty bits so it's easier to put a value on it. Cheers, Ben.
Surely if you have had the car mot'd early and it has failed then this must invalidate what ever mot it had i.e the car is now an mot failure so therefore unroadworthy and should not be driven until it passes an mot. It can't be right that once a car has failed it's mot that an owner can say oh well i can still drive it as it had x amount of time remaining on it's old mot. Please correct me if im wrong.
dragonheart said:
Surely if you have had the car mot'd early and it has failed then this must invalidate what ever mot it had i.e the car is now an mot failure so therefore unroadworthy and should not be driven until it passes an mot. It can't be right that once a car has failed it's mot that an owner can say oh well i can still drive it as it had x amount of time remaining on it's old mot. Please correct me if im wrong.
That's not correct, legally.One of the vagaries of the early MOT process - the old MOT remains valid, despite the failure, therefore no offence is being committed.
C70R said:
That's not correct, legally.
One of the vagaries of the early MOT process - the old MOT remains valid, despite the failure, therefore no offence is being committed.
That's true, but you still can't drive it on an illegal tyre. So, if the current owner hasn't at least swapped the MOT fail tyre with the spare (I'm guessing they have) for example, it is illegal to drive it.One of the vagaries of the early MOT process - the old MOT remains valid, despite the failure, therefore no offence is being committed.
With regard to the other failure points you probably could construct an argument to say it was unroadworthy but a lot less cut and dried than a tyre.
confused_buyer said:
C70R said:
That's not correct, legally.
One of the vagaries of the early MOT process - the old MOT remains valid, despite the failure, therefore no offence is being committed.
That's true, but you still can't drive it on an illegal tyre. So, if the current owner hasn't at least swapped the MOT fail tyre with the spare (I'm guessing they have) for example, it is illegal to drive it.One of the vagaries of the early MOT process - the old MOT remains valid, despite the failure, therefore no offence is being committed.
With regard to the other failure points you probably could construct an argument to say it was unroadworthy but a lot less cut and dried than a tyre.
There's no way on earth a roadside check would pick up any of the other fail points, so it's effectively moot.
C70R said:
One day to go, and bidding at almost £700. Looks like this might not be the terrible ending some predicted.
That is the wonder of ebay - you frequently get as much or more for a "spares and repair" car than a working one.A lot of these types of cars end up being broken or being exported to places where, umm, the equivalent MOT requirements are somewhat less onerous.
BenjiA said:
I hope so. I've got my eye on another S500. Slightly more local and twice the price, but it's 2003 facelift so should be galvanized. However, I need this one gone before I try and do a deal. I hope I don't get stung by the all too common ebay timewasters....
The 2003 on don't rust is an internet myth. The W211's are generally OK but the W220 will quite happily rust away on 2003 & 2004 models and so will the W203 C-Class right up to 2006. They're better, and don't usually rust in such a catastrophic way, but they can rust.So I thought I’d update the thread as to the final destination of the S500. After wafting around in this wonderful vehicle for a couple of weeks, the end of the ebay auction came, with it finally selling for £685. I’d left 4 days after the auction when there was still MOT so the buyer could experience a comfortable cruise home in opulence before welding/breaking/whatever lay instore for the poor thing. After having a couple of emails ignored I phoned up the buyer, who seemed unaware that he had been bidding and had won. Apparently this was due to having dropped his phone down the toilet.
At this point, I suppose alarm bells should have started ringing, but, being a trusting sort I carried on regardless. It seemed that he was not too bothered about the MOT running out as he was going to send a flatbed anyway, probably at the weekend, and he’d let me know. As the weekend approached I followed up s to when the collection would occur.
It seemed there was a slight issue, and transport might now be a problem. This is obviously great news as I now have a car with no MOT. A cunning plan began to form in my mind. As we all know, if you have an MOT booked, you can drive to a test centre, so I offered to deliver the car for an MOT local to him. Seems a good plan doesn’t it? Get rid of said vehicle, cancel insurance, move on. No messing.
Arrangements made to meet somewhere in Essex 8am Monday morning, I got up early, slightly hungover and began to try and work out how to get from the test centre to work in Docklands. Google seemed to think it would take 2 hours 40 mins. That cannot be right, can it? It’s only an hour to drive there?
So I eventually get there, somewhere 20 minutes north of Braintree, and I phone the buyer, who says he’ll be out in a minute, and oh, there was a slight issue, he’d only got £500, but it would be ok as he had some gold.
Erm right.
So out he comes, climbs in, says cat looks ok, and obviously still runs, and that’s all he’s bothered about. Gets out his wallet, starts counting cash and stops at £300, starts complaining about his mrs, who’s obviously nabbed a large chunk of his folding. Happens to us all, we’ve all been there; thought we had £685 and ended up £385 short due to the wife doing us over.
Out comes a bag of gold jewellery. Little ziplock bag full of bits of tat. Fella says he deals in it, knows a bit about it, got some good pieces so he has. So he shows me a couple of rings, says they are worth a few hundred quid, and asks me what did I think?
At this point I started to get a little irritated. I think I said something along these lines. “listen I’m not a f*cking jeweller, I’ve done you a favour driving the car over here, I don’t really know where I am, or how I’m going to get to work. I’ll just go and drive this somewhere even though I’m no not insured, let’s just call it off”
Fella looks a little upset at this, thinks hard for a minute (which seemed a strain) and says “These two rings and I’ll give you a lift the the station”
All I’m interested in at this point is getting to the station. So I did a deal.
It seems that the final destination of the S500 is to have it’s pipes sawn off before the cats and to be drifted in a demolition derby type drifting event at the Norfolk raceway. He’s going to let me know when it will be, just in case I want to say goodbye. If I find out the date, I’ll obviously post it on here.
In the meantime, does anyone have any ideas what these might fetch?
At this point, I suppose alarm bells should have started ringing, but, being a trusting sort I carried on regardless. It seemed that he was not too bothered about the MOT running out as he was going to send a flatbed anyway, probably at the weekend, and he’d let me know. As the weekend approached I followed up s to when the collection would occur.
It seemed there was a slight issue, and transport might now be a problem. This is obviously great news as I now have a car with no MOT. A cunning plan began to form in my mind. As we all know, if you have an MOT booked, you can drive to a test centre, so I offered to deliver the car for an MOT local to him. Seems a good plan doesn’t it? Get rid of said vehicle, cancel insurance, move on. No messing.
Arrangements made to meet somewhere in Essex 8am Monday morning, I got up early, slightly hungover and began to try and work out how to get from the test centre to work in Docklands. Google seemed to think it would take 2 hours 40 mins. That cannot be right, can it? It’s only an hour to drive there?
So I eventually get there, somewhere 20 minutes north of Braintree, and I phone the buyer, who says he’ll be out in a minute, and oh, there was a slight issue, he’d only got £500, but it would be ok as he had some gold.
Erm right.
So out he comes, climbs in, says cat looks ok, and obviously still runs, and that’s all he’s bothered about. Gets out his wallet, starts counting cash and stops at £300, starts complaining about his mrs, who’s obviously nabbed a large chunk of his folding. Happens to us all, we’ve all been there; thought we had £685 and ended up £385 short due to the wife doing us over.
Out comes a bag of gold jewellery. Little ziplock bag full of bits of tat. Fella says he deals in it, knows a bit about it, got some good pieces so he has. So he shows me a couple of rings, says they are worth a few hundred quid, and asks me what did I think?
At this point I started to get a little irritated. I think I said something along these lines. “listen I’m not a f*cking jeweller, I’ve done you a favour driving the car over here, I don’t really know where I am, or how I’m going to get to work. I’ll just go and drive this somewhere even though I’m no not insured, let’s just call it off”
Fella looks a little upset at this, thinks hard for a minute (which seemed a strain) and says “These two rings and I’ll give you a lift the the station”
All I’m interested in at this point is getting to the station. So I did a deal.
It seems that the final destination of the S500 is to have it’s pipes sawn off before the cats and to be drifted in a demolition derby type drifting event at the Norfolk raceway. He’s going to let me know when it will be, just in case I want to say goodbye. If I find out the date, I’ll obviously post it on here.
In the meantime, does anyone have any ideas what these might fetch?
Bit of a roller-coaster thread!
Benji - you seem like a really nice and very trusting guy. It's a shame you've lost out here, at least it's only a few hundred pounds.
At first I thought "oh dear sounds like R8Steve has shafted you"... But having read your last post, I'm not so sure
. It does sound like maybe a sub-£1k S500 is the wrong car for you. It also sounds like if someone stood in front of you waving giant red flags and bowing klaxons right in your ears you would still fail to see the warning signs (sorry... bit mean).
It was very very nice of you to drive to the MOT station... But really... You couldn't see the warning signs? Honestly?
Better luck next time. Selling a car on eBay means you get to sit on your arse and wait for the cash to fall in your lap. If that doesn't happen - the second bidder gets it.
Benji - you seem like a really nice and very trusting guy. It's a shame you've lost out here, at least it's only a few hundred pounds.
At first I thought "oh dear sounds like R8Steve has shafted you"... But having read your last post, I'm not so sure
. It does sound like maybe a sub-£1k S500 is the wrong car for you. It also sounds like if someone stood in front of you waving giant red flags and bowing klaxons right in your ears you would still fail to see the warning signs (sorry... bit mean).It was very very nice of you to drive to the MOT station... But really... You couldn't see the warning signs? Honestly?
Better luck next time. Selling a car on eBay means you get to sit on your arse and wait for the cash to fall in your lap. If that doesn't happen - the second bidder gets it.
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