The Pictures Do Not Tell All......Sadly

This week I’ll be talking about something I’ve been planning for this upcoming summer related to Mercedes. Since I’ve started driving I’ve always wanted to buy a car to work on and fix up all by myself. I enjoy working on my car now, but I would like to acquire a car that needs some minor body work and interior work. Basically I would want something that I can work on throughout this summer. So recently, I’ve been searching around for cars, especially a Mercedes-Benz, that’s maybe been in a slight accident or something of that nature. As some of you may or may not already know, cars with accident damage can be about 50% cheaper than cars with no damage. So, this would definitely be in my budget range.

Usually the price of a car is drastically cheaper when it has written off, or “totaled” by the individual’s insurance company. Cars are deemed “totaled” by the insurance company when the value of the damage done actually exceeds the value of the car. Often times, insurance companies find it easier to just declare an accident damaged car (especially older models) “totaled” so they can pay the individual the value of the car prior to the accident. Once the owner of the damaged car is paid off the owner usually opts to purchase a newer car. In this case where the owner chooses to just part ways with the damaged car, the car now becomes property of the insurance company. Since the insurance company is not a dealership they try to make up the cost of the damaged car they just purchased by selling it to people at car auctions willing to rebuild and fix up these cars. Of course, these cars are discounted by almost half, so the price to those who are familiar with fixing up cars is seemingly attractive. Additionally, sometimes the cars that are declared “total loss” may not even be damaged beyond repair and would be feasible to repair. Now, going back to my summer plans on how I wish to acquire one of these cars to work on as a project over the summer, I recently thought I found one that was perfect for me.

I was looking on eBay and happened to find my dream car. The 2000 Mercedes-Benz C43 AMG, now I know I already literally the same car (the car I have and the 2000 C43 AMG model I’m talking about shared the same exact body style), and yes I know it is an old car, but the history behind this car is unlike no other. This particular year only 91 were produced, and only 25 were imported to the United States. According to the Mercedes-Benz enthusiast forum, there were 3 that were confirmed to be wrecked.  With these numbers in mind, I see this car online and it seems surreal that it is up for sale. Not only is it up for sale, but the listing price is very low. After some more researching on the car, I find out that it only has 36,000 miles.

I thought this might be the deal of a lifetime, as I could potentially own the lowest mileage C43 AMG sedan in the world. After looking at some pictures of the car it was evident that the car needed slight cosmetic work to bring it back to life, but why not I thought this could be the perfect summer project.  I called the seller and my enthusiasm went south as I heard the history of the car. Apparently, the car had been in an accident in which it hopped over a high street island (basically the pavement that separates the roadway) at a high speed resulting in “irreparable” frame damage. Sad to hear such news like that considering frame damage cars are something that are not worthy fixing because a bent frame compromises the integrity the vehicle and most times the car will never drive the same.  Judging the car based on the pictures seemed to prove me wrong as the pictures did not tell the entire story. Now, I know why the price was so reasonable for this car, and I’m glad I did further research before committing to it. This is definitely something to learn from, as pictures do not always tell the history of a car. Sadly, though this brings the total cars imported to the U.S. that year down to 21, and who knows of the other ones that may have been crashed and not reported. In the meantime, maybe I’ll stumble upon another one of these cars in the future.