Help choosing my next car

[s3th]

Hi all

time has come for a new car, ive decided on an AMG. Now 2 options iv got is ether buy a sl55 or finance a sl63 and I have been offered a really cracking deal by my local merc dealership.

I was ready to buy a sl55 it's fully loaded and only a mere 16500 miles on and when i went to view it was super clean and mint more or less a brand new car price:41.5.
However after speaking to a family friend who is a prestige car dealer he told me to leave it as they are hard to re-sell and its the old model

so now I am in a bubble and do not know what to do any suggestions? :S

[r129sl]

I have to say I find this an utterly bizarre post, not least because you're not really comparing equivalent cars. One is a 40k used car, the other is a £100k new car. We all know what the differences are between the 55 and 63: they're like chalk and cheese.

I think you need to ask yourself these questions:

Which one do you want most?
How important is the money to you?
How long are you keeping the car?

If you've got enough money not to care, buy the car you most want. It's pointless asking us which one that is. If you don't want to spend your capital and the SL63 AMG deal really is that good (like how good?), maybe that is the one for you. On the other hand, if money is important and you want to keep the car forever, the SL55 AMG is going to be better for you.

For me, I wouldn't be renting the 63 unless I'd paid off my mortgage, bought everything else that my wife wants (tough one, that) and had enough money not to notice the payments. However good the deal is, unless your circumstances are very good indeed (and good luck to you if they are), there's almost bound to be something better to spend the chunky payment on. But then I spend my day driving an ancient car fantasising about a brand new one, so I'm not going to say I'm right about that.

[benzito]

I agree with most of r129sl's post. All depends on budget and if you are thinking of re-sell valuation then depreciation is important.

I disagree with 'difference between sl55 and sl63 is like chalk and cheese' the styling is almost identical apart from front headlights and bumpers, same interior systems (command etc), performance equivalent - in fact 55 has about same bhp but 60-70 more foot/lb torque.

If it was me I would not go near any newish amg car as the depreciation is significant. The sl63's on sale at the moment will be worth 15-20k less after a couple of years (this is almost certain), if you buy a later sl55 then the value after 2yrs will only be reduced by 4-5k max in my opinion, look at others like e55 - the prices have been very stable for the past year or two and I think this will continue as you are buying so much car for the money.

If I had enough money for an sl63 (prices now down to 70k), I would much rather go for an alternative italian supercar option or an aston, these will be incredible and there will be little depreciation, in fact quite a few have been appreciating over the last year,

[r129sl]

benzito said:

I disagree with 'difference between sl55 and sl63 is like chalk and cheese' the styling is almost identical apart from front headlights and bumpers, same interior systems (command etc), performance equivalent - in fact 55 has about same bhp but 60-70 more foot/lb torque.

Fair points!

And I think if I had the money for a SL73 AMG, I would instead buy a SL55 AMG, a r107 500 SL, a w140 S600, a w126 560 SEC, a w108 280 SE L 3.5 and maybe a w201 190 E 2.6!!! Oh, we can play this game all night!

Edited by r129sl on Thursday 3rd February 21:26

[benzito]

lol! yeh i would do anything to have an original sl73 amg, one of the rarest of cars and such a special engine, i think in a few years if things go ok then i might start looking for a sl73 on the continent to see if any are around going cheap, yeah right!! they'll probably be worth even more then,

other option would be to give sultan of brunei a call as i'm sure he'll have an sl73