We Bought a 2015 Mercedes-Benz C-Class

Cars.com just named the redesigned Mercedes-Benz C-Class our Best of 2015 car. As we’ve done in recent years, we purchased this Mercedes to put our money where our mouth is. Naturally, the process kicked off with a familiar question: Which C-Class would we get? Among the new 2015 C-Class sedans on Cars.com, we found more than 150 examples within 50 miles of our Chicago offices. We’ve already driven both the C300 and C400, and we deemed the C400’s extra power unnecessary versus the already-punchy C300, particularly since it starts some $10,000 higher.

Related: Cars.com Names 2015 Mercedes-Benz C-Class Best of 2015

We settled on the C300. Given the nature of Chicago weather, we opted for all-wheel drive, and so set our sights on a 2015 C300 4Matic sedan; that combination accounted for more than 80 percent of the 2015 C-Class sedans in dealer inventory near our offices at the time we were shopping. Including destination, the C300 4Matic starts at $41,325 but can spiral past $60,000 if you load up the options. Still, most examples on Cars.com near us were listed between $45,000 and $55,000.

We settled on a plan. We’d visit a Mercedes-Benz dealership near downtown Chicago to see what option groups were popular; then we’d email that dealership along with a few others when we had an idea of the equipment that we wanted. As always, we told salespeople we were looking to buy a company car, providing only our personal email addresses and mobile phone numbers. We revealed only after the price had been agreed to that we worked for Cars.com.

Getting a Lay of the Land

Typical of an urban dealership, the Mercedes-Benz dealership near our offices had only a handful of 2015 C-Class sedans. Nearly every car there had the C300’s Premium 1 Package (LED headlights and taillights, Burmester premium audio, satellite radio and keyless access) plus heated front seats, which totaled $2,700. Several cars also had the $975 Luxury Package (including $325 for required wood trim) or the $2,175 Sport Package. Both packages add upper dash and door stitching and unique suspension tuning; the Sport gets more-aggressive styling, upgraded front brakes and 18-inch alloys in place of 17s.

Some cars had a $2,690 Multimedia Package (backup camera, larger center screen and navigation system), and some had a $1,480 panoramic moonroof. We found plenty of cars without the Luxury or Sport packages, so we decided we didn’t need either one. We wanted the Multimedia Package, as it had an all-important backup camera (a feature that’s standard in many cars that sell for half this price). Given the increase in reported problems from multimedia systems, it would also give us a chance to chronicle the full capabilities (and any glitches) with Mercedes’ Comand system. We also wanted heated seats and decided we’d go with the Premium Package.

Asking Around

We reached out to three Mercedes dealerships — the one we’d visited in Chicago, one in the city’s northwest suburbs and another in the west suburbs — inquiring about similarly equipped C300s. In all three cases, we started by asking for the best price out the door, a price that would include tax, title and registration fees, and the dealership’s documentation fee.

The first response came from the western suburbs. After a discussion about what we were looking for, we got an email that afternoon with a surprising offer. The dealership was willing to slash $5,578 from our car (11.8 percent off the MSRP), dropping it to $41,687. After sales tax, title/registration, documentation and an electronic filing fee, our out-the-door total would be $46,052.70.

That was impressive, but we hoped that we could do better. We called the salesman and said our budget was more in the $45,000 to $45,500 range. Could he work with us?

He said he could.

Other Dealers

After that conversation, a sales manager at the Chicago Mercedes-Benz dealership called and took down our information. We explained our offer from the west suburban dealership; if the Chicago dealership could beat that, we’d buy from the city dealer instead. The sales manager said he was confident he could compete because Mercedes was offering a $2,000 “winter certificate” on the 2015 C-Class, and he could dip into the dealer holdback cash.

He contacted us again but said he didn’t have a perfect match in terms of equipment. The dealership had a C300 4Matic with the Multimedia Package, Premium Package and heated seats, but it also had a panoramic moonroof, power trunk and wood trim, at least $48,770 worth of car, including destination. He could do $47,000 out the door.

A salesman from the northwest suburbs dealership called, and emailed us an offer on a car with the same options as the west suburban dealership that it had in stock. The initial offer: $4,045 off  (“our best deal,” the salesman pitched via email), leaving an out-the-door price of $47,265. Negotiating another $2,300 off the initial discount was going to be a tall order. We moved on.

Test Driving

We headed out to the western suburbs to kick the tires on our prospective C300. We took a 10-minute test drive and went back to negotiate. Could the salesman make it $45,000 out the door? He said he thought we could do something between $45,000 and $45,500. We stuck to our guns at $45,000, slipping in the fact that we had a verbal commitment for a C300 4Matic with at least $2,000 in extra features for $47,000 out the door. It didn’t make much sense to pay $46,000, or even $45,500, for this one.

After disappearing twice, the second time to demonstrate via computer charts that the current offer was already below what the dealership called a “smart” target price, the salesman said he couldn’t move any more on his initial offer of $46,052.70, and then asked if we could split the difference between that and $45,000. We held firm, but so did the dealership, and we eventually left. We called the city dealership and left a message for our original salesman. If he could do $47,000 out the door on the C300 in stock with the panoramic moonroof and other options, we were interested.

More Negotiations

An hour later, our cellphone rang. It wasn’t the city dealership; it was the west-suburban dealer. Our offer hadn’t been rejected, not yet.

“I have my new-car manager looking at it,” the salesman said. “Call you back.”

He did. Later that afternoon, our phone rang with the news we wanted: The salesman told us we had a new offer in our inbox. And there it was: $6,578 off the 2015 C300 4Matic we’d test driven. The new total: $44,957 out the door.

We told him we liked that number.

Taking Delivery

The rest was fairly simple, albeit drawn out. We put down a deposit and inspected the car one more time. We had license plates from our previous long-termer, a 2014 Chevrolet Impala that we had sold earlier, and because of that, the title and registration fees dropped another $76 from Wednesday’s quote, and our final tab was $44,881.70. That’s more than $7,200, or nearly 14 percent, off a car whose list out-the-door price, including destination fee, sales tax and all listed fees, was $52,087.71.

On Dec. 22 we returned with a check for the balance of the purchase, and took delivery of our new C-Class Mercedes. We’ll have it throughout 2015, and as we do for all of our long-termers, we’ll document gas mileage, repair and maintenance costs, driving impressions and anything else that sticks out — good or bad — throughout our ownership experience. How does the C300’s turbo four-cylinder stack up against the drivetrains in other luxury sport sedans? How does the latest iteration of Comand handle our smartphones and road trips? Are those Latch anchors up to snuff for our editors’ car seats?

All of that and more is ahead. Stay tuned.

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Cars.com photos by Kelsey Mays and Evan Sears