4 ms·

Replacing the head unit was more expensive than the money you lost on trading-in/selling the car?

gambiting 6y ago
Absolutely. Any money put into modifications like these is essentially lost, you won't get even a fraction of it back when it comes to time to sell the car. The modified head unit plus labour to fit it was worth about 9 months of payments on that car, so doing it would have been nuts.
- pandaman 6y ago
  So your German car depreciated less than 9 month of payments (supposedly on a 60 month loan with little down?) after being used? That's not my experience with German autos, was it some A-B Klasse that they don't sell in the US?
  - gambiting 6y ago
    GLA45 AMG, 4 year PCP, £400/month. I have actually beaten the depreciation by about £4000 at the end of the contract, sold the car and was left with a massive chunk of money to put towards the next car. Buying the head unit would have effectively wiped all of that money out because its value on sale would have been exactly zero(in fact it would have been negative, as the car would have been now modified which has to be reported to insurers increasing your premium and putting off potential buyers). It was absolutely not worth doing, in any conceivable scenario, not at the price Mercedes wanted for it. But once again, like I said in my first post - this wasn't anywhere near the main reason for changing the car, but I would lie if I said I wasn't looking forward to finally having access to Android Auto.
    - pandaman 6y ago
      I am still uncertain how your calculus work. In the US, at least, if you buy a car and sell it the same day you are still out of sales tax (depends on location), various fees and the depreciation due to not having a clean title. On German cars this is about 20% of the cost (again, depends on location). I am sure a CLA45 (I suppose you mean that, not GLA) head unit with labor is less than $10K you'd lose on selling a $50K car (as you said, 9 payments of 400 pounds). So, as it seems, it could not be a possible reason for a sane person (lose 10K vs lose 4K + some insurance premiums in the range of few hundred bucks over the life of the car).
      - gambiting 6y ago
        No, a GLA45 - not sure why there's confusion, as a matter of fact I know a GLA45 is available in the US as well? And.....well, I can present my maths clearer, sure. But I think you're missing the part where I said I had the car since 2016 - so obviously got 4 years of use out of it. Had I sold it day one then sure, I can't beat the depreciation. But assuming a well structured finance agreement you(with some luck) beat the depreciation around year 2-3. By year 4 you should be able to sell the car with some "profit" for yourself unless something bad happened. I don't know the equivalent financial product in the US, but here in UK I had what's called a PCP - personal contract purchase. It means that the bank loans you money for a car, you buy it, it's in your name(not owned by the bank, it's not a lease), but you pay off what the bank assumes will be the depreciation over 4 years, and then after 4 years you can make the final "lump sum" payment of whatever remains and that's it, or you return the vehicle to the bank and pay nothing more. So it's in some ways similar to lease, but in some ways it's better(the car is always yours from the start so you are always free to sell it at any point without asking your bank for permission). So in my specific case, I was paying £400 a month for 4 years, then the "lump sum" payment at the end of the PCP was set at £20k. I have reached the end of my agreement, but found a buyer willing to pay me £24k for the car - so I sold it to them, paid off the bank, and was left with a nice £4k in my account(which I then used to purchase another vehicle). Now, MB UK wanted £3600 for fitting the new head unit(it was a lot of electical stuff in the car that would have to be replaced, tons of labour). Had I paid for it, that alone would have wiped off what I made/saved on selling the car at the end. It would have been(financially) an incredibly bad investment, as like I said, the value of such mod is zero or less. And(once again, for the 3rd time), this wasn't a reason to swap. I have and am losing money on the next vehicle that is currently standing in my driveway. But certainly a lot less than on fitting a new headunit to my previous Benz.
        pandaman 6y ago
        My bad, I checked Costco website for the price and they only list GLA 250 trim in the GLA model, sorry about that. > And(once again, for the 3rd time), this wasn't a reason to swap. So why did you bring it up as a reason to swap? Obviously people lease or whatever their cars and get new cars after 3 years and the new cars have new features how does it contradict my point that people do not sell their cars for the gimmicks?

Absolutely. Any money put into modifications like these is essentially lost, you won't get even a fraction of it back when it comes to time to sell the car. The modified head unit plus labour to fit it was worth about 9 months of payments on that car, so doing it would have been nuts.

pandaman 6y ago
So your German car depreciated less than 9 month of payments (supposedly on a 60 month loan with little down?) after being used? That's not my experience with German autos, was it some A-B Klasse that they don't sell in the US?
- gambiting 6y ago
  GLA45 AMG, 4 year PCP, £400/month. I have actually beaten the depreciation by about £4000 at the end of the contract, sold the car and was left with a massive chunk of money to put towards the next car. Buying the head unit would have effectively wiped all of that money out because its value on sale would have been exactly zero(in fact it would have been negative, as the car would have been now modified which has to be reported to insurers increasing your premium and putting off potential buyers). It was absolutely not worth doing, in any conceivable scenario, not at the price Mercedes wanted for it. But once again, like I said in my first post - this wasn't anywhere near the main reason for changing the car, but I would lie if I said I wasn't looking forward to finally having access to Android Auto.
  - pandaman 6y ago
    I am still uncertain how your calculus work. In the US, at least, if you buy a car and sell it the same day you are still out of sales tax (depends on location), various fees and the depreciation due to not having a clean title. On German cars this is about 20% of the cost (again, depends on location). I am sure a CLA45 (I suppose you mean that, not GLA) head unit with labor is less than $10K you'd lose on selling a $50K car (as you said, 9 payments of 400 pounds). So, as it seems, it could not be a possible reason for a sane person (lose 10K vs lose 4K + some insurance premiums in the range of few hundred bucks over the life of the car).
    - gambiting 6y ago
      No, a GLA45 - not sure why there's confusion, as a matter of fact I know a GLA45 is available in the US as well? And.....well, I can present my maths clearer, sure. But I think you're missing the part where I said I had the car since 2016 - so obviously got 4 years of use out of it. Had I sold it day one then sure, I can't beat the depreciation. But assuming a well structured finance agreement you(with some luck) beat the depreciation around year 2-3. By year 4 you should be able to sell the car with some "profit" for yourself unless something bad happened. I don't know the equivalent financial product in the US, but here in UK I had what's called a PCP - personal contract purchase. It means that the bank loans you money for a car, you buy it, it's in your name(not owned by the bank, it's not a lease), but you pay off what the bank assumes will be the depreciation over 4 years, and then after 4 years you can make the final "lump sum" payment of whatever remains and that's it, or you return the vehicle to the bank and pay nothing more. So it's in some ways similar to lease, but in some ways it's better(the car is always yours from the start so you are always free to sell it at any point without asking your bank for permission). So in my specific case, I was paying £400 a month for 4 years, then the "lump sum" payment at the end of the PCP was set at £20k. I have reached the end of my agreement, but found a buyer willing to pay me £24k for the car - so I sold it to them, paid off the bank, and was left with a nice £4k in my account(which I then used to purchase another vehicle). Now, MB UK wanted £3600 for fitting the new head unit(it was a lot of electical stuff in the car that would have to be replaced, tons of labour). Had I paid for it, that alone would have wiped off what I made/saved on selling the car at the end. It would have been(financially) an incredibly bad investment, as like I said, the value of such mod is zero or less. And(once again, for the 3rd time), this wasn't a reason to swap. I have and am losing money on the next vehicle that is currently standing in my driveway. But certainly a lot less than on fitting a new headunit to my previous Benz.
      - pandaman 6y ago
        My bad, I checked Costco website for the price and they only list GLA 250 trim in the GLA model, sorry about that. > And(once again, for the 3rd time), this wasn't a reason to swap. So why did you bring it up as a reason to swap? Obviously people lease or whatever their cars and get new cars after 3 years and the new cars have new features how does it contradict my point that people do not sell their cars for the gimmicks?