Advice needed: New car for Lili
 

Time for a new car for the wife. We have 2 candidates. I'm completely indecisive on this. She is leaning towards option #2. What do you guys think?



Option #1: 2015 Mercedes E350 4 door from dealer CPO

Pros:
Under warranty for another 3+ years
Affordable: Around $38K
OK to put quite a bit of miles on it

Cons:
Drops like a rock in value. Will be a $10K car in 5 years.
Booooooring. They are as common as dirt around here (SoCal)
She is kinda done with Mercedes after owning them for the past 15 years



Option #2: 2009-2011 Porsche 911 with PDK from private party

Pros:
Holds value very well. They are actually going up right now.
She's excited about driving one

Cons:
More money. Around $48K
No warranty
Can't put too many miles on one. 5K a year is about right.

911.

Why can't she put miles on them?

Buy the Merc for everyday stuff and let her drive your 993 once in a while (or not ???) for some excitement.

911 all the way :)

For some reason I thought you were in Montana

yeah, Mercedes are probably more common here than they are in countries where they use them as taxis. Porsches aren't far behind but most of those are trucks or sedans now.

she'd look good in the 911 (well, I'm sure she would look good in the Mercedes too but there is no substitute for the Porsche).

Merry Christmas!

I bought my wife a new 2013 E350. She hated it. It was white and she named it white bread. Boring, cheap feeling, and just like every other sedan. Now, a 997, that's real living!

How about Door #3 - a CPO 2014 Cayman w/ PDK for about the same money as the older 911?

For example:

https://www.porscheofsandiego.com/inventory/Porsche+Cayman+San+Diego+California+2014+Sapphire+ Blue+Metallic+960293

Range Rover

You have a beautiful wife. Get her something you are proud to see her in. If she has even the slightest interest in a 911 then kudos to both of you Richard!

What about something different?

A gently used Porsche Macan :)

No need to read further...option #2 :)

Why only 5k per year? The 911 is a comfortable, fun, economical, and reliable daily driver. Long term it will be a much more reliable car than the Mercedes. I've had a lot of 100k+ miles Porsches and so long as they are maintained, they are very robust cars. The 997.2 in particular, because there are no IMS concerns. Just give it an occasional hard run to prevent DI carbon buildup.

Though I will second Jim's recommendation of the Cayman, especially for your wife because there is much more cargo space with the rear hatch and front trunk. My wife loves both of my Porsches, but if we are going shopping we leave the 911 at home. The Cayman is just as fun, cheaper, and gets better MPG.

Vote for whatever she likes. Happy wife = happy life.

Mazda Miata

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^^^^ Bingo. But I'd be real tempted to opt for a cab.

Ian

Well, if you really want to make her happy and avoid depreciation:

https://www.cargurus.com/Cars/inventorylisting/viewDetailsFilterViewInventoryListing.action?sourc eContext=&formSourceTag=112&newSearchFromOverviewP age=true&inventorySearchWidgetType=AUTO&entitySele ctingHelper.selectedEntity=c3389&entitySelectingHe lper.selectedEntity2=c3381&zip=90066&distance=500& searchChanged=true&modelChanged=false&filtersModif ied=true#listing=158158221

What the Richard the stick says. Buy her whatever she wants. I think that she should test drive a few different ones. Suv's, Cayman etc.

Water pumper 911's or Caymans are great. Also it is Christmas so that makes it really special. Enjoy your search.:)

My wife has the E-350 and we both love it. In fact it's her second. We still have her 2008 and drive it regularly. It still looks like new and we have no plans to get rid of it.

As for the newer E-350, it's not sporty, but it has plenty of acceleration. It's kind of fun to hit the gas at the top of the on-ramp and fit a car of that heft slickly into speeding traffic. Sport cars are great and they're a lot of fun. But grand touring cars are a lot more comfortable and easier to live with on a daily basis. I don't find the E-350 bland, but that's just my taste. We do get a lot of compliments on my wife's car, though. The thing about her car is that everything about it is so well done and solid. There isn't a weak point on the car. It seems thoroughly competent from top to bottom.

We don't care about depreciation because we're going to keep ours for a long time. Our car buying strategy has evolved into buying nicer cars that are more expensive but that we like so much that we keep them a long time because we enjoy them so much and don't want a new car.

Just my two cents. I think she'd love the E-350 and you'd both be happy with it.

The world we live in is interesting when an E350 is described as "booooring" and "common as dirt"

Merry Christmas all :)

The suggestions for Cayman, Cayenne and Macan are good... she is totally open to those, but the investor in me just can't stomach the depreciation. These things go down to $10K pretty quickly. I don't believe a 997 will depreciate as much.

I realize that 997s will go 100K miles easily, but we would more likely do the heavy miles with one of the F150s to keep the 997 miles low.

I guess we're leaning more towards the 997. I'd like to talk her into a cab :)