atspring

Has anybody picked up a North American market W204 through European delivery? We are schedule to take delivery next week and the anticipation is about killing me. One of the ED notifications I signed points out the car will run on regular unleaded when I get it, but will be retuned for premium unleaded once it gets to the States (for mileage reason). Anybody notice a difference in drivability between the two tunings?

Mr Purple

Hi there, i live in the UK/EU so cant help with the European delivery question, but cant comment on fuel.

Most garages throughout Europe now sell unleaded premium (97 octane) hence bit puzzled why it would need to be retuned but i am sure there is a valid reason somewhere.

cant say i've noticed a difference between the two. but then, i only tried it a few times, the price in the Uk is extortionate.

mac911

Wow. You must be so excited! I wish I could have done ED, with my car. Have a great time. Hey, if you can, pass us on a couple pictures, when you get back. Enjoy !

angeloxnet

maybe regular to europe is different octane then the regular in north american markets? just a thought

ManchesterMerc

In the UK regular is 95 octane {labelled super} then we get 97/98 which is labelled super+ then Shell Optimax which is 100 octane.

atspring

Thanks for the comments. If I recall correctly the disclosure said it would run in EU on 89 octane (I think of 87 as regular) and be tuned for 91 octane after it arrives in the US. From what you guys are saying I wonder if EU and US octane are scaled differently.

We are going to UK briefly. Driving on the proper (lol) side of the road is going to be an experience, especially right hand turns.

I'll try to get pictures posted while we are there.

RLE

<<Has anybody picked up a North American market W204 through European delivery? We are schedule to take delivery next week and the anticipation is about killing me. One of the ED notifications I signed points out the car will run on regular unleaded when I get it, but will be retuned for premium unleaded once it gets to the States (for mileage reason). Anybody notice a difference in drivability between the two tunings?>.

It will have less power but since you will be following break-in rules for the first 1000 miles, you won't know the difference.

bing330i

I am sure you will have a great time. I did ED for my BMW and the whole experience was great. Out of curiosity, did you get any discount from the standard ED price? Thanks.

Untertürkheim

That does not make sense, at EU stations they sell three grades, RON 91 (US 87), 95 (US 91), 98/100 (US 92-94), even though the 91/87 is being phased out. While in Germany try the Shell V-Power 100.

atspring

Returned from Germany yesterday. In 10 days we put over 1800 miles on the car with no gas quality issues. Cheapest gas was in Nurnberg at $9.00 per gallon, while outside London we paid around $10.50 a gallon. Today I bought gas in the US at $3.63 - what a deal.

slammer111

^ that's awesome.

Cygnus X1

Welcome back, what a great way in using the first miles on a Benz. Those are some steep gas prices but at $5.20 a gallon in Canada I should be happy I guess

atspring

Back on the topic of octane, we consistently saw pumps with 95 and 98 octane and we went with the 98. I never saw an indication of the octane rating method. Also, I detected no pre-detonation and experienced no driveability issues. For the first 1,100 miles of so we averaged 24.9 miles per gallon. For the entire 1,800 miles we averaged 24.6. After the break-in period we seemed to find ourselves in situations with more frequent and greater variation in speed which could bring down the mileage.

The car will be here in 6 to 10 weeks.

Untertürkheim

In Europe, the RON (research octane number, if I remember the abbreviation correctly) is used to measure rather than the (R+M)/2 method (average of research and motor octane) used in the US. RON95 is about equal to (R+M)/2 91, which is the minimum these cars are designed for. RON98 is about 93 or 94 in the US, which gives a nice buffer zone and insures no pre-ignition.

On a side note, Shell and Aral have upgraded their premium in Germany to be RON100, and most stations are phasing out RON91.

jherbias

How was the overall experience? If the time comes to get a C-Class I am considering it.

BTW my professor founded the (R+M)/2 method. Scott Samuelsen of UCI

atspring

For years I've wanted to do European delivery (ED), but frankly never thought it would happen. The experience was better than I expected - for any model available through ED I can't imagine why I would take delivery at the dealership.

If you really want an MB, taking the factory tour will convice you that you made the right choice. Building the chasis takes a day, painting another day, and final assembly takes a day and a half. The chasis plant is so automated (98 to 99%) we saw virtually no people in that building. For comparison we toured another German automaker's plant in 1985 where building a car took about 8 hours and painting appeared to take about 15 minutes (probably longer, but it didn't seem very long).

ED comes with a free night in any number of hotels. We spent ours in Stuttgart the night before delivery. MB provides some taxi vouchers and a meal voucher for the restaurant at the delivery center. The restaurant is somewhere between not-that-great to pretty good depending on how well you like Swabian (regional) cuisine. I olved the food, my wife was okay with it.

Between the 7% discount and not paying delivery we saved around $3,900. Also, if we had to rent a car for the 2 weeks I was told the cost would have run us about $1,500.

We should have done 3 weeks instead of 2.

tivoboy

Seems the ED prices went up about 3% from 2008. Not a bad increase, considering the $ was down about 15% over that period. We'll probably still do ED on a 2009 C-Class. saves about 4,000$

paladiumonblack

I have a 2009 C300 4-Matic on order for Euro Del in May. Looking forward to the experience. How was the hotel in Stutgart - we are planning on doing the same.

TRauppius

The reason for ED setting the ECU tuning to 85 octane (or better) unleaded is that they are worried about poor availability of premium unleaded in eastern European countries. When the vehicle is returned to the US the MB processing center will reflash the ECU to run on 91+.

I drove my 2009 C350W about 700 miles total in Germany and Austria and noted that they usually offered three unleaded gasoline grades, non less than 91.

The car came with a full tank of ?? grade, and I refueled once with 93 octane; it ran great. I drove 30-50 autobahn stretches at 110 MPH and got an average of nearly 27 MPG for my entire trip. MPG seemed especially good at around 90 MPH.

My US mileage has not been as good as the winter driving with engine warmup efficiency losses has reduced my MPG, also more stop and go driving in US compared with European roads.