How to Part Exchange Your Car

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As the title suggests.

My dad's car has gone busted recently. A full checkup at merchanic revealed way more problems than just a busted gear box. It turns out the cost to fix all major problems would cost more than the price which bought this car itself back in the days.

Since the problem involve break fluid and gearbox itself, I cannot just simply hand the car to a dealer for a quick sale, so it seems the only solution is part exchange.

I have no idea how does one go about to do it as I myself never really owned a car before.

Also the license plate was a private plate, so I kind of want to keep it.

Thanks in advance

*UPDATE*

Sorry to revive this thread, just wanted to give everyone an update on the situation - for those who're interested.

After about 3 weeks of parking the Mercedes down Mercedes Service Centre, I finally had the car towed to the mechanic. The place was recommended by a friend of mine, and said the owner was originally working for Mercedes (very nice bloke he is)

So far the price was £180 for 2 inspection sessions (£90 per hour for car inspection) at Mercedes.

Towing the car to the mechanic 17 miles away from RAC costed £119.

The car arrived at mechanic on Friday late late afternoon 5pm, the bloke who ran the place went through the report printed out by Merc service centre and had a laugh about the quoted price + problems listed on it.

For those who are interested, I can provide that list here once I retrieve the car, but on top of my mind, few things that was listed on the report were:

- Break fluid might be contaminated, so change that would be £400 ish.
- Rare spring show sign of corrosion
- Under plate were missing
- A tyre require replacing.

So only then we realised the report did not list anything about why my car cannot get into shift (engine wouldn't switch on)

I left the car over the weekend and received a call on Monday morning - the cause was due to a broken oil pump. With no petrol being pumped into the engine, that's the reason why the engine wouldn't start up.

By the same afternoon around 5pm, my car was already fixed. An oil pump costed £210 with labour about £300ish.

Lesson learned.
 
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If the car will cost more to fix than it would be worth, then its part exchange value is surely no more than scrap value? So why would a dealer take it in part ex?
 
If you go to a dealer with a car like that don't expect to get good value. There are two options which you could do.

1. Scrap it
2. Break it for parts
 
Vita said:
If you go to a dealer with a car like that don't expect to get good value. There are two options which you could do.

1. Scrap it
2. Break it for parts
Click to expand...

[TW]Fox;23068337 said:
If the car will cost more to fix than it would be worth, then its part exchange value is surely no more than scrap value? So why would a dealer take it in part ex?
Click to expand...

Problems + price to fix, which the guy from Mercedes dealership quoted over the phone:

Gearbox £183.60
Cam belt £96.96
Break fluid £445.32
Front Break Pad £400ish
Exhaust corroded, for replacement £667
Rear coil spring £555

and some other bits and pieces which I lost track over. The total came to £3417.02

My dad got the car for £3500 with a very nice private plate.

@Vita: you mentioned I could break it for parts?

I'm just trying to find a best solution to get some cash out of this car so it can go towards to a replacement.

Cheers everyone
 
That's got to be worth a reasonable sum even as spares / repair - would think ebay or an owners forum would be the best place to list that

Edit there's really a very large gap between what you've listed and the overall cost...can you list everything that's wrong with it? I dont think your list is correct and some of those prices are really high even for merc bits (400 quid on fluid strikes me as completely wrong), there may be a way to get the car running relatively cheaply then get rid of it...of course it may go for more than you can get back after all costs are incurred anyway to a breaker
 
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rodenal said:
That's got to be worth a reasonable sum even as spares / repair - would think ebay or an owners forum would be the best place to list that

Edit there's really a very large gao between what you've listed and the overall cost...can you list everything that's wrong with it? Some of those prices are really high even for merc bits, there may be a way to get the car running relatively cheaply then get rid of it...of course it may go for more than you can get back after all costs are incurred anyway to a breaker
Click to expand...

I think I got to go talk to the guy in person for a detailed report. The problems are pretty serious, hence the high price to fix. For example, the guy said the break fluid was contaminated, and it have to be drained and replaced, hence it'll cost about £445 to do (and it's illegal to drive under such condition)

Originally the problem was with the gearbox, where the car lost all power on the throttle and grinded to stop. Eventually the engine cannot be started.

I'm so not good with cars and I'm totally clueless :confused:
 
Wait what?

£445 to drain and replace the brake fluid? Don't be ridiculous, I pay £60 for that a main dealer?

£183 to fix a gearbox at a main dealer is so cheap that the actual problem can only be something very trivial and easy to fix or it would be much more. Serious gearbox issues cost thousands not hundreds.

£400 for front pads? The pads will be 40 quid or so and the labour an hour tops.

Cambelt? £96 is far too cheap to change a cambelt so again something doesnt add up especially as the CLK320 doesn't have a cambelt it has a chain. Do they mean the aux drive belt? A trivial job - a simple service item.

The car isn't in need of £3.5k of work at all. From what you've listed there it is quite easily fixable for significantly less money!
 
Sorry but thats absolutely nonsense r.e the fluid, or the cost rather. It should be around 40 -60 quid unless you're missing a large chunk of work that the guys doing as well.

400 odd quid for pads for it is nonsense too but merc discs and pads all round it might not be, 500 quid for a spring is just crazy too but a 500 quid full set of shocks and springs not so much

You've either missed a load of detail or they're completely at it with the numbers

Even the exhaust - I've spent a few minutes looking and depending what you acruallynneed the parts are anywhere from 100 quid to about 300, the labour cost would be very small for installing
 
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Here's an example of the cost of pads for the car

http://www.eurocarparts.com/brake-pad

Even the most incompetent of mechanics could do these in an hour for you, so thats say 45 quid parts 50 labour versus your quoted 400 plus

Same again for springs

http://www.eurocarparts.com/coil-spring

you should replace in pairs so both rears, fitted are going to be less than 200 pounds.

You can normally get about 25% off these parts too

Oh I highly doubt the car has a cam belt, every oroper merc ive ever seen is chain driven -will be a fan belt which is a 15/20 pound part and usually about the same again to fit

Multiply this up for each fault and you can see where it's going. Id be surprised if half of these issues eveb existed given the replacement quotes, even if they do it sounds more like 6-800 of work not 3.5k
 
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[TW]Fox;23069156 said:
Wait what?

£445 to drain and replace the brake fluid? Don't be ridiculous, I pay £60 for that a main dealer?

£183 to fix a gearbox at a main dealer is so cheap that the actual problem can only be something very trivial and easy to fix or it would be much more. Serious gearbox issues cost thousands not hundreds.

£400 for front pads? The pads will be 40 quid or so and the labour an hour tops.

Cambelt? £96 is far too cheap to change a cambelt so again something doesnt add up especially as the CLK320 doesn't have a cambelt it has a chain. Do they mean the aux drive belt? A trivial job - a simple service item.

The car isn't in need of £3.5k of work at all. From what you've listed there it is quite easily fixable for significantly less money!
Click to expand...

rodenal said:
Here's an example of the cost of pads for the car

http://www.eurocarparts.com/brake-pad

Even the most incompetent of mechanics could do these in an hour for you, so thats say 45 quid parts 50 labour versus your quoted 400 plus

Same again for springs

http://www.eurocarparts.com/coil-spring

you should replace in pairs so both rears, fitted are going to be less than 200 pounds.

You can normally get about 25% off these parts too

Multiply this up for each fault and you can see where it's going. Id be surprised if half of these issues eveb existed given the replacement quotes, even if they do it sounds more like 6-800 of work not 3.5k
Click to expand...

Thanks for the input guys.

Now the car is at the Mercedes Service center in east London.

It is indeed possible that I have missed a lot of detail there, but for certain things I can be sure of, which is the brake fluid, as the guy was explaining to me what they would do to it. Also applies to front brake pad and the coil spring.

I think I should get Mercedes to get me a detailed report before I proceed from this point on.
 
Unfortunately a mercedes dealer was a poor place to take this age of car. I take it its not drivable? The problem is you're going to have to find someone you can trust which may mean getting reccomendations from others. You need to find out what the gear box fault is really, thats about the only thing id consider letting them.touch but as fox pointed out its likely.to be something really inconsequential in terms of real world cost as opposed to mb dealer rates
 
Mercedes main dealers are expensive for anything - there is no value for money servicing packages and repair work like this is going to be hugely expensive. It is absolutely the wrong place to take a 2002 CLK.
 
Lol I'll give you £1000 given it needs loads of work!

Seriously, take the car out of the main dealer and take it to a reputable independent, work required will be no more than £5-600 using aftermarket parts.
 
As a first step find out what's actually wrong with the gearbox then get the car somewhere else for a re-check. Give them the list of work the dealer claims is needed and see what they say.

Main dealers are notorious for over-egging things, you'll probably find the pads are about half worn & the exhaust just needs a single section replaced, gearbox needs a £20 speed sensor etc.

I really wouldn't throw away what is probably an otherwise nice old motor over those "faults"
 
Don't do anything with the car till you've got a second opinion from a good independant. A Merc dealer is always going to be expensive for a car this old, and you may find things are not as bad as they appear. Some of the prices you've quoted seem really odd.
 
This car does not need to be sold as is, or anything of the sort.

That price list is typical of a Mercedes main dealer, none of that will be major work looking at those (cheap for the dealer) prices.

Take this car to a specialist independent, forget Mercedes. Someone like Star Motor Services in Reading (my prefered Mercedes specialist, top place) http://starmotorservices.co.uk/ will have that back on the road for you for a few hundred quid.
 
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