I have come to realise that here in Australia we pay higher prices to purchase used Mercedes-Benzes compared to the prices those of you living in the US pay. On the other hand, I have realised recently that many of you are suggesting very high premiums for your insurance. I have seen figures of several thousand dollars per annum quoted for MBs worth maybe only $10k-20k. Possibly these are the premiums for young drivers living in high risk areas. Maybe your insurance also covers more than ours. I would be interested to hear of different insurance premiums (and other annual fees) for different locations around the world.

Here in the state of New South Wales, Australia, we have compulsory third party personal injury insurance that is required before a car can be registered. For each of my cars this runs to around $350 per annum. This amount is in addition to an annual registration fee which including taxes amounts to $200 to $350 for most cars (not used for business purposes). In addition to this we have optional vehicle insurance which can be just third party property (for damage to other people's property) or fully comprehensive (for damage to your own car as well). The comprehensive insurance on my '90 190E is around $800 and for our '90 300TE about $1000 per annum. For my '73 SLC it is around $400 with restricted (recreational) use. These policies have an excess (I think in the US you call it the deductable) of typically $500.

These figures are based on a reasonably low risk suburb of Sydney. Many suburbs carry higher premiums whilst smaller towns in rural areas have much lower premiums. They are also based on no young drivers (who incur much higher premiums).

Keep in mind with all the figures I have quoted that I am referring to Australian dollars, currently worth about $0.70 USD.

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107.023: 350SLC, 3-speed auto, icon gold, parchment MBtex (sold 2012 after 29 years ownership).
107.026: 500SLC, 4-speed auto, thistle green, green velour.
124.090: 300TE, 4-speed auto, arctic white, cream-beige MBtex.
201.028: 190E 2.3 Sportline, 5-speed manual, arctic white, blue leather.
201.028: 190E 2.3, 4-speed auto, blue-black, grey MBtex.
201.034: 190E 2.3-16, 5-speed manual, blue-black, black leather.