Record oil prices, spiralling motoring costs, looming recession. It probably wasn’t the best time to buy a 1988, 4.2-litre V8 Mercedes S-Class. And like the economic boom-time that this car was born into, the profit-making bubble PistonHeads was enjoying with its sheds eventually had to burst.
We had bought the car for £865 and yesterday I took a paltry £600 cash to shift it. I don’t profess to being a pro at buying and selling cars – in fact after the Pug this was the second car I’d ever flogged – and it’s all about learning from your mistakes I guess. So what went wrong? The obvious starting point would be the choice of car.
It may not be everyone’s cup of tea but in a way the amount of metal you seemed to get from this 115,000-mile 420SE made it look like a bargain…on paper. Electric everything, full Mercedes service history, and one family owned since new made it seem like an unpolished diamond (or a polished something else depending on your point of view) and Garlick and I naively thought we could sort out the rather chronic rust problems and be left with a sound SE that would easily make four figures.
Two words – ‘metallic paint’ – perhaps those resprayed panels aren’t going to be as easy as we thought. Never mind, for a while we just enjoyed driving it. One thing that never ceased to amaze me was the queue of motoring journalists wanting to take the big Merc. Hot hatches, Evo Xs, STis, and even proper exotica would be left unloved in the car park outside PH Towers as colleagues wafted off in the wallowy blue Merc. To be honest the queue of people wanting to actually buy it was slightly shorter, or rather it was non-existent.
I was managing to pick up plenty of spam from the different ads I had placed here and there for the Merc and never grew tired of the disappointment when I opened an email and read: ‘Please tell me condition of bike.’ Seasons changed and the Merc still refused to budge. It was around this time that I started to think the car was possessed. Let me explain.
Even football managers didn't call
The odd person had called but no-one had come to see the old girl, until one day a PHer called Richard phoned me. He was doing some sort of European banger run and said he was interested, so I arranged for him to come over the following Thursday night. It was when the first spots of rain hit the windscreen as I was driving home that I realised the windscreen wipers had inexplicably decided to stop working.
Nothing I could do could make them work, including forcefully trying to move them until one of the blades snapped off in my hand. I made my excuses and apologised for letting Richard down and set my mind to fixing the wipers before we our re-arranged meeting on Saturday. Resident mechanic Mr Will and I tried everything the next day and with cut knuckles we gave up, defeated, guessing at a faulty (and no doubt pricey) wiper motor.
I decided to meet Richard anyway and the next day I told him I could either get the wipers fixed or knock some cash off. As we were chatting I casually turned the key in the ignition and without warning the wipers burst into life – or should I say ‘wiper’ as the broken one was in the boot and now the naked arm was scraping violently across the windscreen. Not a good start. After the test drive I never heard from Richard again.
Then there was the moment the stereo turned itself up to max for no apparent reason on the motorway and wouldn’t turn off – I was starting to feel like this car wouldn’t let me sell it, even if I could find a buyer. All this time a chap called ‘John’ had been calling me from Norfolk, saying he would come and see the car one day. I hadn’t paid much attention but a few days later he phoned and arranged to come and see the Merc.
To say my spirit had been broken by this point would just about sum it up, I wanted rid of this car but somehow could never see that happening. I met John, a friendly chap who owned two similar SEs, and he and his friend pawed over the car. By this point the auto ‘box had become somewhat jerky, not to mention a few other niggles that had surfaced.
The air con, which I thought had worked at first, no longer did, and I put that down to the cold March day that I bought it. It didn’t look good and I felt bad for wasting John’s journey. Then out of nowhere he asked me how much I wanted for it. Obviously sensing my body language he went in for the kill.
V8, 15" wheels and rain. Hmmm...
'To me it’s worth £500,’ he said, but we finally settled on £600. So there you have it - a lesson on how not to buy and sell a car. But the point of the exercise is to work out the rights and wrongs, so from here I hope to learn from my mistakes. From our initial £500, and after making a profit on the Maestro and Pug, we had £300 in the kitty after spending £865 on the Merc.
That means we have got £900 left, but then take away £101.75 for six months tax, £10 worth of oil and £30 brake pads, and we are left with £758.25. We are going to have to choose very wisely on our next purchase - perhaps a V12 next...
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