Big German Executive Luxury Sedans and Depreciation - Audi vs BMW vs Benz

"Voice of C. Montgomery Burns" (voiceofcmb) 07/08/2014 at 15:38 • Filed to: None

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I wrote "Benz" to keep the title short, no disrespect.

So, I spotted a mid-2000s S600 in a corporate parking lot and I remembered a post here about crazy depreciation of formerly very expensive top-end German luxury cars. I thought to myself, which one of the three is going to get hit the worst. So I wasted some time at work today to compare three top-end models from the three aforementioned companies. Make your predictions now.

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All three of these cars were selected from KBB's online used car value calculator. All cars were selected with 50,000 mileage, all values are for "excellent" condition, all cars are selected with the "base" options as per KBB. All cars only come in automatics. All cars are valued based on my local zipcode in the southwestern PA area.

- 2004 Audi A8L 4.2 $16,018

- 2004 Mercedes Benz S600 $15,339

- 2004 BMW 760Li $24,614

Any ideas as to why the 7-series depreciated the least compared to the other three? It seems like a big difference when you're comparing three cars that basically have similar levels of prestige and are generally used for the same purposes.

MAXIMUMVRM > Voice of C. Montgomery Burns 07/08/2014 at 15:44

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the Benz already depreciated the most. Buy Audi hoon Benz blow up BMW.

Manuél Ferrari > Voice of C. Montgomery Burns 07/08/2014 at 15:45

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I have no idea

Did you check to see what the list prices are for all 3 cars?

KBB values can be pretty off for some cars. The list prices for the BMW may be lower than KBB. And the list price for the other two might be higher than KBB

Voice of C. Montgomery Burns > Manuél Ferrari 07/08/2014 at 15:49

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I didn't check the list prices but I'm going to guess:

Audi is cheapest, M-B most expensive and BMW close to M-B but less expensive.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Voice of C. Montgomery Burns 07/08/2014 at 15:51

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Lower comparative sales might be one of several reasons. It seems to be hard to find production numbers, but I want to say that I see the Benz and Audi more often. I have seen mention that that was the best-selling 7 yet, but that doesn't seem like a huge hurdle to clear, and may not have corresponded to US adoption either. That being said, there is a definite reason for the Benz depreciating more - during the initial year or two of the W220 some teething troubles led to poor reliability ratings. Some were later revised, but I imagine enough of that issue stuck with the car to carry over. The Audi - don't know.

Manuél Ferrari > Voice of C. Montgomery Burns 07/08/2014 at 15:57

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You're probably right because the Mercedes is the one I would want the most so of course it would be the most expensive!

MAXIMUMVRM > Manuél Ferrari 07/08/2014 at 16:16

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the BMW base msrp is about $7k less than mb