What other cars are you considering now?

[Mark_888]

There are many reasons to buy options that don't have anything to do with status. When I get around to shopping for my next car, I'm going to look for one that provides affordable safety-related options like blind spot detection and automatic emergency braking that can compensate for lapses in attention, fatigue, and so on. Unnecessary gadgets to some, but well worth it to me. Unfortunately, these features are sometimes packaged with options that I wouldn't otherwise get, but so be it.

We're a few years away from that scenario, but when the time comes, I'm sure that neither my wife nor I will care much about the car that our daughter's prospective fiancé is dating, as long as it's clean, safe, and appears well-maintained. In fact, I'd be more concerned if he drives up in a high end MB or BMW than, say, a Genesis or Sonata.

• First, I hope most people know I am not 100% serious in everything I said.
• Second, it probably does not apply to the vast majority of people on this forum, who have already, or are like to, purchase a Genesis. But some keep asking why the Genesis does not sell more, and I just think that at $55K it is going to be a tough sell for some. I do think the lower trim level Genesis models are hard to beat in terms in value.

 

[jjsC6]

I would not have suspected that E class is selling for $10,000 below MSRP, but quite a few others have posted that information on this forum.

Here is some additional information I previously posted:

According to a Business Week news article, here are the average transaction prices in the USA "last month" (presumably April 2014) for some of the competitors of the Genesis:

• Cadillac CTS $54,571
• MB E-Class $55,788
• BMW 5 Series $56,284

These are the average selling (or transaction) prices regardless of engine, features, packages, etc. As some have noted, MB-E routinely sells for $10K under MSRP for the last several years at least.

Considering that some people are now paying MSRP or more for a 2015 Hyundai Genesis, which for a loaded V6 is $52,450 and a loaded V8 is $55,700, that is pretty interesting. Granted a loaded Genesis has more tech features than the average MB-E or BMW-5, but prestige factor is still pretty important to most people.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-05-19/cadillac-finally-makes-german-luxury-prices-stick

Those numbers mean nothing without knowing the average list price. I looked at Truecar.com for both Houston and Los Angeles and they tell a very different story. Average discount from list is no more than about $3,000 give or take a little. No way does the $10k discount make any sense at all. I have challenged posts on forums in the past only to find they were full of sht for a variety of reasons.

 

[Mark_888]

Those numbers mean nothing without knowing the average list price. I looked at Truecar.com for both Houston and Los Angeles and they tell a very different story. Average discount from list is no more than about $3,000 give or take a little. No way does the $10k discount make any sense at all. I have challenged posts on forums in the past only to find they were full of sht for a variety of reasons.

I cannot personally vouch for the $10K off list price, but:

• What makes you think Truecar.com has the best prices? I don't think MB dealers want to advertise on TrueCar how low they are willing go in a face-to-face negotiation.
• I believe the Business Week story is accurate. By looking at MB inventory at a couple of MB dealers, one can gauge what the average package/option level is, and I believe that average also includes the E550 models that are sold(although they are obviously a fairly small percentage of the E series sales).

 

[ksoze]

Average discount from list is no more than about $3,000 give or take a little. No way does the $10k discount make any sense at all. I have challenged posts on forums in the past only to find they were full of sht for a variety of reasons.

The Mercedes E350 is heavily discounted and has been for at least a year or so. I personally was offered over $7K off list just walking in to a Benz dealer a month ago. I am in an east coast market, between two major cities. Getting close to $10K off would have been very possible - this would be getting a $64K list car for around $55K. At the end of last year incentive were about $6K without further discounting off list. On the west coast, the deals appeared best, as the competition was more fierce.

Edit: Truecar is showing over $6.5K off list near me for normal configured car on lots.

 

[Mark_888]

From what I have read, BMW and MB are in a neck-to-neck battle for sales leadership, and both consider it to be very important to win race, so that may explain the heavy discounting going on recently. Also, when one looks at residual value (which I assume is fairly good for MB), I wonder if a MB lease is particularly attractive now (for those who only keep a car 3 years or less).

 

[jjsC6]

I cannot personally vouch for the $10K off list price, but:

• What makes you think Truecar.com has the best prices? I don't think MB dealers want to advertise on TrueCar how low they are willing go in a face-to-face negotiation.
• I believe the Business Week story is accurate. By looking at MB inventory at a couple of MB dealers, one can gauge what the average package/option level is, and I believe that average also includes the E550 models that are sold(although they are obviously a fairly small percentage of the E series sales).

You need to learn what Truecar.com is.

 

[jjsC6]

The Mercedes E350 is heavily discounted and has been for at least a year or so. I personally was offered over $7K off list just walking in to a Benz dealer a month ago. I am in an east coast market, between two major cities. Getting close to $10K off would have been very possible - this would be getting a $64K list car for around $55K. At the end of last year incentive were about $6K without further discounting off list. On the west coast, the deals appeared best, as the competition was more fierce.

Edit: Truecar is showing over $6.5K off list near me for normal configured car on lots.

I just put in a Baltimore zip code as I don't know where in Maryland you live. I came up with $5,000 approx on e350 sedan listing at around $59k. That is about double what I saw for Houston and L.A., but still nowhere close to $10,000.

 

[Mark_888]

You need to learn what Truecar.com is.

The information I provided in the Business Week article is based on public tax records of what people paid. Those numbers are accepted by the industry as accurate. The average selling price for a MB E series (all engines and all trim levels) in April for MB E-Class was $55,788. That is only $88 more than the MSRP of the a 2015 Hyundai Genesis 5.0 Ultimate. Many people are having to pay MSRP for the 2015 Genesis right now (some less, and some more). I realize that the Genesis prices are likely to come down as supply increases, and the MB prices are not likely to get much (if any) lower.

 

[ksoze]

Also, when one looks at residual value (which I assume is fairly good for MB), I wonder if a MB lease is particularly attractive now (for those who only keep a car 3 years or less).

The current E350 lease offer now has 10K miles, 27 month leases at 68% residual.

 

[nextcar]

Those numbers mean nothing without knowing the average list price. I looked at Truecar.com for both Houston and Los Angeles and they tell a very different story. Average discount from list is no more than about $3,000 give or take a little. No way does the $10k discount make any sense at all. I have challenged posts on forums in the past only to find they were full of sht for a variety of reasons.

i used to think like you: how can a carmaker sell a MSRP 60,000 for 50,000, and still make a profit.

that is, until i talked to a friend who just bought one for 10k off.
thinking that was a bargain, and never having owned a MB before, we decided to buy one too.
i called up and visited several dealers in the LA metro area, and a few were willing to give the same discount, while others could only do about 6k off msrp.

after i bought our E350 for 10k off MSRP, i talked to a few coworkers who also had recent year E class. about half of them got 10k off msrp, but a few only got 5k off.
the only reason they didn't get as good a deal was they didn't shop enough dealers and did not negotiate hard enough.

so, i'm sure the average selling price is not 10k off, but it's entirely possible if you are in the LA area, as we have so many MB dealers here.

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[jjsC6]

The information I provided in the Business Week article is based on public tax records of what people paid. Those numbers are accepted by the industry as accurate. The average selling price for a MB E series (all engines and all trim levels) in April for MB E-Class was $55,788. That is only $88 more than the MSRP of the a 2015 Hyundai Genesis 5.0 Ultimate. Many people are having to pay MSRP for the 2015 Genesis right now (some less, and some more). I realize that the Genesis prices are likely to come down as supply increases, and the MB prices are not likely to get much (if any) lower.

If I understand, the information you provided was what people paid, not what their discount was, correct? I never said they were not accurate, they are meaningless without knowing what the average list price of the cars was. All I was doing was responding to your post that said the AVERAGE discount is $10,000. I countered with my own information which is from Truecar.com - which is probably where Business Week got their information -that is what Truecar does.

I'm not trying to make a big issue out of it, I'm just trying to make my case - I've been reading about huge discounts on E-Class M-B's for a while now, and once again there is no basis for the statements that are being made. One or two guy claims to have gotten such and such a deal and suddenly it becomes the average price paid!

 

[jjsC6]

i used to think like you: how can a carmaker sell a MSRP 60,000 for 50,000, and still make a profit.

that is, until i talked to a friend who just bought one for 10k off.
thinking that was a bargain, and never having owned a MB before, we decided to buy one too.
i called up and visited several dealers in the LA metro area, and a few were willing to give the same discount, while others could only do about 6k off msrp.

after i bought our E350 for 10k off MSRP, i talked to a few coworkers who also had recent year E class. about half of them got 10k off msrp, but a few only got 5k off.
the only reason they didn't get as good a deal was they didn't shop enough dealers and did not negotiate hard enough.

so, i'm sure the average selling price is not 10k off, but it's entirely possible if you are in the LA area, as we have so many MB dealers here.

Once again a post gets taken out of context. I NEVER said that I think an automaker can't make money at some discount - 10,000 otherwise. I know a huge amount about buying cars - I normally deal with owners and GM's of dealers. Yes, there are times when they can sell at a big discount if the manufacturer is offer backside incentives.

I work in an industry that has backside incentives also. Yes, I do believe there are times when those deals can be had. I believe that maybe in December or some other specific month there were big incentives. All I said was that I don't believe that $10,000 discounts were anywhere close to being the AVERAGE price paid. Go back and read all of my posts. And I'm the ONLY one on this thread who actually posted data supporting my claim (Truecar.com).

 

[Mark_888]

If I understand, the information you provided was what people paid, not what their discount was, correct? I never said they were not accurate, they are meaningless without knowing what the average list price of the cars was. All I was doing was responding to your post that said the AVERAGE discount is $10,000. I countered with my own information which is from Truecar.com - which is probably where Business Week got their information -that is what Truecar does.

I'm not trying to make a big issue out of it, I'm just trying to make my case - I've been reading about huge discounts on E-Class M-B's for a while now, and once again there is no basis for the statements that are being made. One or two guy claims to have gotten such and such a deal and suddenly it becomes the average price paid!

The Business Week numbers are average transaction price, which is a statistic that has been gathered and reported since before the internet existed. YEH quotes those numbers frequently. Regardless of where Business Week got it from, I can assure you, they don't get it from TrueCar, they get it from tax records. Whether TrueCar gets it from the same source as BusinessWeek, or directly from tax records themselves, I don't know (but suspect the former).

The $10K discount on E350 was from people on this forum who insisted it was possible, especially on the west coast. I don't have any reason to doubt them, but I don't have any independent knowledge myself.

The discounts I saw on TrueCar for MB was substantial, about $7K on average. Some can probably negotiate a lower price.

One thing I noticed about TrueCar is that sometimes they claim to have gotten prices below ATP (average transaction price), but on some cars in some areas the TrueCar price is above ATP.

As for average list price of a MB, I mentioned that one could look at a dealer inventory to see the average MSRP. I assume that the ATP is close to the average inventory price. BTW, I looked at 2014 Genesis prices on TrueCar, and they reported about $7K off MSRP, but a lot of people have claimed on this forum to have gotten $8K - $10K off MSRP.

Anyway, bottom line is that if someone is paying MSRP for 2015 Hyundai Genesis 5.0 Ultimate, they are at least close to MB E350 territory, albeit with the MB not having as many features/options as the Ultimate. For most people on this forum who have purchased a Hyundai Genesis, or are about to, I think they understand that the 2015 Genesis may be a better car than the MB E350, but not sure if the general public is going to buy into that very easily.

 

[Hstead]

I know Truecar in my area is way higher than what I am getting quoted from dealers with face to face conversations. Perfect example is the 2014 R-spec which according to Truecar is going for an average of $42,581 and you can buy them all day long for below $38,500.

 

[jjsC6]

I know Truecar in my area is way higher than what I am getting quoted from dealers with face to face conversations. Perfect example is the 2014 R-spec which according to Truecar is going for an average of $42,581 and you can buy them all day long for below $38,500.

I guess I'm going to throw in the towel on explaining this…but one more time. Yes, cars can be bought cheaper than True car. Read up on True car and you'll see how it works. When I first started looking at their site a couple of years ago I wondered too how they got their information and what it means.

 

[Motegi]

Motegi How did you like the S60 Volvo? Was it the R version? I like the looks of that car but never sat in one.

Was not an R because it was for the wife who is more concerned about the features and steering feel more than straight line speed.

We tried the S60 T6 FWD loaded with the driver assistance features and platinum package w Navi. The price was pretty much the same as the Genesis V6 Tech. You can see in the ranking where she placed the Volvo.

 

[akuma]

According to a Business Week news article, here are the average transaction prices in the USA "last month" (presumably April 2014) for some of the competitors of the Genesis:

• Cadillac CTS $54,571
• MB E-Class $55,788
• BMW 5 Series $56,284

These are the average selling (or transaction) prices regardless of engine, features, packages, etc. As some have noted, MB-E routinely sells for $10K under MSRP for the last several years at least.

Considering that some people are now paying MSRP or more for a 2015 Hyundai Genesis, which for a loaded V6 is $52,450 and a loaded V8 is $55,700, that is pretty interesting. Granted a loaded Genesis has more tech features than the average MB-E or BMW-5, but prestige factor is still pretty important to most people.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-05-19/cadillac-finally-makes-german-luxury-prices-stick

even though some (many?) people have paid near sticker or over sticker for a V8 Ultimate doesn't mean that the new Genesis is selling near the average ATP of the E, 5 and CTS. even on this very thread people are considering C-classes, Accords, Acuras (mostly TLX), LaCrosses, Avalons, Enclaves and even Santa Fes, ES350s, USED (CPO) 5s, Es, A6s and LS460s. maybe a handful are considering a new E, 5, CTS or GS.

it just confirms that in the real world, price is more important than "class" or "segment". what is the best NEW car you can get for $40k? probably a Genesis 3.8 Signature (just under $43k MSRP), which i think will be by far the best selling trim. it already has basically everything a loaded and overpriced Cadenza (also $43k MSRP) has except adaptive cruise and lane departure warning, while having a few features (smart trunk, 14 speaker Lexicon, puddle lamps ) the Cadenza doesn't. a loaded Fusion is also over $40k and doesn't have a V6, HIDs, power sunshade or panoramic moonroof either. the take rate for the V8 is expected to be around 20% or less and the Ultimate trim might be around half but not much over half of that. the reason, many V8 buyers are opting for the Ultimate is because the base V8 already includes all the lower packages so if customers want the neat features like HUD, premium Lexicon and CO2 sensor, they only have to pay around $3k more instead of well over $10k more from the base V6. so probably only about 10% of Geneses will be in the $50k ATP (after a couple months if not now) range. the rest will be much closer to $40k. still impressive for Hyundai but about $15k or so cheaper than the mid-sized luxury leaders.

so there will still be a lot more potential customers for the Genesis than for a new CTS, E class or 5 series.

 

[strushen]

Like many of you, I planned to replace my Genesis (2009) with the new one early to enjoy less depreciation since it is a 2015 model. The 2015 has many new safety features I find very desirable. It also has some gimmicks that don't sway me (panoramic sunroof, automatic trunk opener). I wasn't stunned by the rear of the car. It looks like an Elantra to me. No chrome. Definitely downscale. The old Genesis has climate control coming to the backseat from the B pillars and the center console. The new one only has it from the center console. The extra inches of wheelbase went to the hood not to the backseat. I was disappointed that the 2015 did not have a port for an SD card. My wife doesn't like that the A pillar is so close to her head since it impairs her vision. The center console is higher and makes you feel that the car is less spacious in the interior. I think that the satin trim on the exterior will look dated in a few years. Finally, the added weight with the same drive train can do nothing for the MPG which is already not a class leader (I have a 3.8L). Then the increase in price and the high depreciation made me step back and reconsider an early purchase.

I looked at my driving habits and find that I take my Honda Odyssey on long trips for the carrying capacity and comfort. I drive the Genesis in the city daily. So I am considering buying a new mini-van with the bells and whistles (I'll wait til the 2015 Kia comes out and look at it as well as the Honda and Toyota). In the meantime I will keep the 2009 Genesis for a few more years. Right now the cars that are on the top of my list as a replacement are 2015 Mercedes C250, 2015 Acura TLX, Toyota Avalon, BMW 4 series, Honda Accord and maybe a 2015 Hyundai Sonata. Quite a variety but I decided I want something with better fuel economy that has the new safety features BSW and Smart Cruise control. After the 2015 Genesis is on the market 6 months I may reconsider if the transaction prices come down $6K. Of course, the comparison tests from Consumer Reports, Car & Driver and Motor Trend could alter my consideration of the 2015 Genesis too. I will also watch the monthly sales figures to see how the public views it. But it didn't knock my socks off like the original Genesis and I had to take a few steps back when I saw the window sticker. Yes it has more features, but so do all the new cars. Its a competitive world. Genesis is not in the BMW and Mercedes territory. They never will be as long as you go to a Hyundai dealer to buy one.

 

[Midnightsun]

Like many of you, I planned to replace my Genesis (2009) with the new one early to enjoy less depreciation since it is a 2015 model. The 2015 has many new safety features I find very desirable. It also has some gimmicks that don't sway me (panoramic sunroof, automatic trunk opener). I wasn't stunned by the rear of the car. It looks like an Elantra to me. No chrome. Definitely downscale. The old Genesis has climate control coming to the backseat from the B pillars and the center console. The new one only has it from the center console. The extra inches of wheelbase went to the hood not to the backseat. I was disappointed that the 2015 did not have a port for an SD card. My wife doesn't like that the A pillar is so close to her head since it impairs her vision. The center console is higher and makes you feel that the car is less spacious in the interior. I think that the satin trim on the exterior will look dated in a few years. Finally, the added weight with the same drive train can do nothing for the MPG which is already not a class leader (I have a 3.8L). Then the increase in price and the high depreciation made me step back and reconsider an early purchase.



I looked at my driving habits and find that I take my Honda Odyssey on long trips for the carrying capacity and comfort. I drive the Genesis in the city daily. So I am considering buying a new mini-van with the bells and whistles (I'll wait til the 2015 Kia comes out and look at it as well as the Honda and Toyota). In the meantime I will keep the 2009 Genesis for a few more years. Right now the cars that are on the top of my list as a replacement are 2015 Mercedes C250, 2015 Acura TLX, Toyota Avalon, BMW 4 series, Honda Accord and maybe a 2015 Hyundai Sonata. Quite a variety but I decided I want something with better fuel economy that has the new safety features BSW and Smart Cruise control. After the 2015 Genesis is on the market 6 months I may reconsider if the transaction prices come down $6K. Of course, the comparison tests from Consumer Reports, Car & Driver and Motor Trend could alter my consideration of the 2015 Genesis too. I will also watch the monthly sales figures to see how the public views it. But it didn't knock my socks off like the original Genesis and I had to take a few steps back when I saw the window sticker. Yes it has more features, but so do all the new cars. Its a competitive world. Genesis is not in the BMW and Mercedes territory. They never will be as long as you go to a Hyundai dealer to buy one.

Have you taken the new Avalon for a ride yet? Probably not since it would not be on your list IMHO. The suspension is really stiff, really not like the older Avalon which was almost a luxury ride. Pretty nice car but man is it small compared to the Genesis. The ride completely turned me off.

 

[strushen]

Yes, the 2014-15 Avalon is on my list. The 2009 Genesis was a firm ride until I put Continental DWS Extreme Contact tires on it. Made all the difference. I have owned 3 Corvettes so the ride is not a big issue. But in Houston, its flat and straight--the Corvettes were from my days in Colorado. So a Mercedes E class ride is more of what I am looking for not a BMW 3. My neighbor has a 2014 Avalon and likes it. I will give all the contenders a close look after the 2015 Mercedes C comes out this fall (that includes the 2015 Genesis). The price, MPG, and depreciation are big hurdles for the Genny right now.