MP4 prices are really plummeting on resale

I lost a comparable sum (or would have lost) in transaction value on a 3000 mile 2006 Gallardo that I bought in October 2006; I was told it would cost me $100K plus my 3000 mile car in late 2007 to get a new LP560 the next year. I kept and enjoyed my 2006 until 2012, so the per year depreciation was bearable. If you want to get rid of a new exotic at 12-18 months, there are LOTS of examples of large losses from Porsche, Jaguar, Bentley, and, if you bought a new 458 coupe at sticker today, Ferrari. Hell, if you'd bought a Ford GT at sticker and sold it the next year you'd have lost a considerable sum!

And if I am not mistaken, to get in and out of a Ferrari you can't really drive it anyway. My 5500+ mile MP4 would not exactly get me full sticker back were it a Ferrari 458.

What was your total miles driven in your 2 458's. While I understand your schedule was part of the issue, in fairness would you not also say that indiscriminate driving is bad for resale on a modern Ferrrairi? Pity, really, as they are great cars and it spoils the experience for every owner and would-be buyer to obsess over mileage that really does not affect a single thing about the car in the grand scheme of things.

 

Frankly, I think you are the poster child for the changing demographic of the more serious and longer term MP4 owner. You bought for all the right reasons, and will likely keep and enjoy the car. The $180-200K MP4s are going to dry up and then what?

 

You know what gets me about you McLaren apologists? In public, you scream how much you love the MP12 and what a great car it is and in private you tell each other just how screwed up McLaren was to ship cars that dealers didn't want and had to move at a discount.

Oh... but don't say that on the Mac sight. You'll be toast. Leave the truth to Fchat.

My beef is not about the car. It's about McLaren. They haven't learned yet but all the Mac people just want to defend them. Proof is that they are now selling near new spiders under MSRP. The spider was supposed to reverse the course.

When we put McLaren here to the test in public, all we get is the same ridicule for doing nothing that you guys say to yourselves in private.

I'm not knocking the car. I'm knocking McLaren. You should be too. They knew what they were doing and they decided to screw early adopters.

Show me the last exotic that lost $100k in one year with 2000 miles on it. I'll show you an Mp4-12c.

I do have a solution for you. What all Mac owners should do get together and blow up the dealer in Philadelphia, along with their stock. Maybe then Mac prices will settle. They are your worst enemy. I don't know if it's desperation or just spitefulness against McLaren but they are the leaders in discounted pricing in the US.

Don't blame Fchat. Blame Cars.com. It doesn't take a genius to search for 2 minutes and find a car at 60 to 80 under MSRP ASKING PRICE that's one year old.

If you want to continue to get screwed and shrug it off, be my guest. But, it will be the end of the brand. I rather doubt that first time buyers are going to look at resale values of 1 and 2 year old cars and say "yes please!"

You see, unlike what you may think, I want them to survive. I want Ferrari and Lambo to make better products. Competition is good. Bring it on.

Massive depreciation is not good for the long term of the brand. There are only so many people out there who can shrug off that amount of cash and buy another. At some point, it's the end of the road.

That would be a shame.

 

Bob, you are quite correct one point, McLaren Philadelphia has done more damage to the resale of these cars recently than any other dealership. Like Keith stated, as an early adopter and someone on both sites, who also owns Ferrari's, I would be more than happy to keep the car for the long run. But I learned my lesson by being an early adopter, good on you all of you're thoughts.

 

Exactly Tony. And, what people should be doing is stop pretending it didn't need to happen --it isn't happening -- and that it continues to happen -- while they screw the brand.

Many early adopters thought this would be like another F1. I'm not saying they thought they would get rich but they certainly didn't think they would be buying boat anchors either.

If you want to continue to sell new high priced cars, you have to protect the people who love the car and brand most -- not LEAST.

It seems they haven't figured that part out yet. Maybe if a few more owners spoke up, it might actually rattle a few dead brains in Woking who seem to think the US is a dumping area for excess 12c production.

The absolutely silliest part of all this is you can buy a similar year and mileage California for the same price as a similar 12c. Is that NUTTY or what? It absolutely makes no sense and it's not the fault of owners of either brand for that fact.

Let's put the cards on the table

12c Great car? Yes
Dealer experience better than Ferrari? Yes
Support of owners? Excellent (free power upgrade, running improvements in software)
Brand image at product launch? Great, if not a bit thin in the US market. The F1 cemented them in auto history.
Car "ready" at launch? Mmmmm... not really ready for prime time. Should have waited a bit but not horrible.
McLaren marketing? Abysmal.
McLaren inventory control? Infuriating if not criminal.

It's not the car. It's the guy who never smiles and his staff.

 

I really don't think it has any lasting effecting on loyalty. Too many people, believe it or not, just don't care about the depreciation. They are wealthy enough. Happens with tons of brands that stick around and have loyal followings. There is a guy on ML who has talked a lot about depreciation and complained a ton about McLaren -- he is on his 3rd 12C IIRC, lost like $100K on the previous 2, and is getting a P1. He's not the only one out there. McLaren only sells like 1,500 of these per year. There is no shortage of very very very wealthy people who don't really care.

Remember, no one forces anyone to sell. Why would someone take a $100K hit on a barely used car? It's because they don't really care. No one who really cares about depreciation would take a loss like that after 1 year and 1,500 miles. Those people don't swap cars every 6 months. They keep cars longer, drive them more, and get more usage for their money.

There is absolutely no reason to sell a 12C at such a loss unless you just hate it, and if you hate it, it doesn't really matter how loyal you are.

BTW, if you buy a 2015 458 you're gonna get burned. If you bought a 2014 Gallardo you got burned pretty bad. If you buy any car in its final year, you get burned pretty bad. That said, people are still buying 458s, Gallardos, SLSs, R8s, and tons of other cars. I think this is proof that the whole depreciation/loyalty issue is way overblown. The argument just doesn't hold up when you look at other brands. A good product will sell. If McLaren makes good cars, it won't really matter if they depreciate.

 

I agree. For those who are interested in minimizing depreciation, there are better choices than buying a new car - any new car. Used cars have already taken the initial depreciation hit (and will continue to shed decreasing amounts of their original purchase price/value over time) but for those trying to escape the depreciation curse, a used classic car will shed less and may even appreciate.

If "status" is driving purchase decisions (whether it's a Prius or an F12), then cost of ownership may very well be of secondary (or little) importance to the purchaser.

 

I did not know I was a McLaren "apologist," and in fact I am not sure what that is. I was not an early adopter, in part because I simply was not ready to pay $275K for any car. I got the early adopter/price plummet treatment from Lamborghini with the Galllardo in the mid 00's and decided to wait and see on the new McLaren. At least the G was a sub $200K car, but on a percentage basis the depreciation drumming I was looking at 18 months in was brutal. Yet Lambo just closed production on the G with over 14K total units, so I am not sure depreciation was such a big deal. I still expect healthy depreciation from what I did pay for my McLaren, and agree that the early adopters who paid full nickel are looking at a ridiculously big hit right now, if they sell.

If they sell. But I personally tend to keep my cars longer, so I don't know that I feel too badly for the person who sells so quickly. I tend to think they did not really like the car that much anyway.

I tend to keep my cars longer term. I still have a 2001 Viper I bought new, ditto 2005 Elise and 2008 Z06. I've never gotten into the Ferrari fold for the magical in & out at no cost deal (I don't believe it exists on a real dollars paid to dealership basis, BTW). I personally figure you are looking at 20% or so to get out of pretty much any car in year one, anyway. That would have been an easy $50-60K on a McLaren; part of my personal calculus for not buying one at first.

But the debate on this thread began with an observation in March of this year that used 2012 coupes could be had at or below the $200K mark. Here we are 8-9 months later and the lowest price I have seen asking from the same source is $188K, so about another 6% over that time. I'd call that leveling off, personally, as that is an annualized number in the 10% range, something any buyer should expect.

Let's face it, Ferrari is a unicorn in terms of value retention and I don't know another marque that enjoys that reputation. And Ferrari has its miscues, too. I'd consider swearing off the brand if I bought the vaunted 430 Scuderia and sold it 18 months later.

Why did that happen? Ferrari dumped a ton of "specials" on the market and I am pretty sure I am correct that an early adopter who bought a Scud got hammered just as hard as any McLaren buyer.

Same thing with the 2008 911 GT2 - Porsche decided to make more and the price of those dropped at least $75K.

So I don't think I make any apologies for the McLaren - it does not hold a candle to a 458 in terms of value retention, curb appeal, or "drama" and "emotion" to most of the demographic and journos out there.

But I STILL like my Viper and Z06, been driving the latter instead of the McLaren the last couple of weeks and simply loving all the things they are and are not. So I obviously have no idea what makes cars great, and that may be why I think the McLaren is so fantastic, too.

 

It is also interesting to note that the car in question setting the price floor at McLaren of Philly is a steel-braked car that also happened to be a McLaren "press car". I queried what exactly is a "press car" and was told that it means the car went from car show to car show and was presented to curious journalists who wanted to write nice things about the car.

My gut told me otherwise, and indeed with very little effort, I located videos online of said car being drag-raced against other cars with launch control, dyno tested by another tuner etc.

My suspicion is that other informed buyers may be choosing to pass on that car, hence the unusually low price. Just my 2 cents as always!

 

The car is a great performer, but so are lots of others.
To my mind, I never thought it was the greatest looking exotic out there, even though I ordered one.
Woking and the fan boys really should come out of their coma; McLaren needs people to buy brand new cars (not, just used ones). Some of their dealers are plain lousy and some of their corporate people I've met don't pay attention to the big picture.
For me, McLaren's Discount-O-Rama pricing in the USA, and what it did to residuals, was the icing on the cake. It showed more than a few owners what the company thought about their loyal customers. I dumped my car, while the dumping was good !
Like the Mayor said: "Massive depreciation is not good for the long term of the brand. There are only so many people out there who can shrug off that amount of cash and buy another. At some point, it's the end of the road."
They won't see me ordering a McLaren again. There's lots of other great stuff coming down the pike without that "cottage industry feel to it".

 

Seems like selling after the initial price drop costs you more per unit time and distance of ownership than just keeping the car. Now if you disliked the car that is one thing but dumping simply because market value is low makes no sense to me.

What Mclaren did do for its original customers is make continuing improvements to the car.

If your basic plan is to trade exotic cars every 12 mo or so I think that is a very expensive plan except for the unique Ferrari and even then you can get burned.

Why does no one mention what happened to 430 Scuderia buyers about 12 months in? Every bit as bad as the 2012 12C

 

I'm late to the dance on this thread, but nevertheless surprised at all of the complaints regarding the 12C depreciation. The simple fact is that the vast majority of these newer cars take a huge hit sooner or later.

In April of 2011, I bought my 2009 Scud with 1K miles on it for $205K. The car had a $323K sticker, so it lost 36.5% of it's value in 2 years.

I bought my 2004 CGT in 2009 for $285K with 3K miles on it - a 36.4% loss of value in 5 years. Needless to say, CGT prices have rebounded significantly since then!

I just bought a 2012 12C with 3.4K miles on it at just about the exact same discount.

In addition to these cars taking similar hits right out of the box (albeit a little longer in the case of the CGT), the commonality is that they didn't go down much more after the initial hit. Sometimes it is simply a matter of the cars finding their way into the hands of long term owners/enthusiasts rather than speculators or those who can't stomach the depreciation.

Moral of the story???? Get of there and drive the piss out of your 12C's boys!!!! They are simply too good to not enjoy to the fullest. Happy TG to all of my stateside brothers!!!

Wolf

 

McLaren 12C Recalled Because Wipers Might Not Work If It's Wet Outside

 

Where was the NTSB when I had my MGB in college? They would have recalled the entire car.

That car wouldn't do anything in the wet except rust.

Good thing I lived in Phoenix.

 

Lucas Prince of Darkness 4 sure.

 

You must have had a bad example. My MGB wipers almost always worked 3/4 of the time. Mine also had the lovely feature of dribbling water into the car from each lower corner of the windshield every time it rained. I consider this the precursor to advanced driver alertness devices like Mercedes is starting to employ. No way you were falling asleep with ice-cold rainwater dribbling down your inner thigh at random intervals!

 

F430 Scuderia! The best example other than the 12C.

I still find it quite interesting that Bob goes to every Mclaren thread and the only topic he brings up over and over and over is the resale. We get it - McLaren resale sucks. Well actually it has improved in the past few months but whatever. Do you have ANYTHING else to contribute. I mean its the same old thing on EVERY THREAD! I guess we will just have to keep them and drive them FOREVER. What a foreign concept!!

How is FF resale? How is 599 resale?

 

FF prices are pretty good actually. 599 has typical V12 drop.

And isn't this thras about 12C depreciation?

 

Hoping 599s will lose another 25-30k then I'm hoping to start looking for my second Ferrari

 

As the 991 GT3/2 and Turbo cars creep towards $200k I would be surprised if there wasn't a floor on 12C prices....

 

Scuds did not lose $100k in one year. Maybe half of that.

Let's get real. You really think the economic conditions of 2009 / 10 were the same as today?

 

Ff resale prices have surprised most, as did the 2009 California which most thought would lose half their value in three years.

 

I hope the Mclaren spiders go down into the 170k range, its a great buy then, so i am all for depreciation.

 

I'm with you on that. I'd like to see 12 coupes at $150k. Deciding between a 12c and F430 would be a no brainer.

 

I still say, once they are out if warranty - which should be soon - (3 year warranty right?) - they will drop even more. The existing dealer network is still quite new, and I'm not sure how many more they will add. Post-warranty work will be pricey at the dealers, without many independent shops to work on these.
Kevin