I did some searching on here, but did not find anything so here goes.

Has anyone tried to track their car from South Africa yet after it has been produced? When I bought my smart, I got the VIN the day it was assigned through a contact on another forum who has factory contacts and was able to track it through the rest of the build process/shipping process via the bill of lading from Wallenius Wilhelmsen and on vesseltracker.com. I actually knew when it was in port at Baltimore before my dealer did.

I've been doing some researching this morning trying to find out who all is used to ship from the East London plant, as well as routes and such and am hitting dead ends everywhere. I am still a couple of months off from my car being more than a roll of steel somewhere waiting to be pressed out - but when it gets a VIN I want to be ready.

Somewhat off topic, but I heard that BMW will give you a DVD with video of your actual vehicle being built (at least for the X5 or X6, don't remember). I wish MB would do that to satisfy the extreme geeks such as us!

I found ship schedules at W&W between East London & Bremerhaven. My guess is that the North American cars are then transferred to a ship bound for Baltimore, Brunswick or Carson City.
Good luck & keep us informed. The information base needs filling in.

Wayne

I'll see what I can find out. There is a guy on the smart forums who is a machine at this stuff - maybe he can help me out.

Merc really doesn't do new car tracking like that, plus your car prob won't be SA built all the C250 at our lot are non SA.

Also they ship into NJ and in FL for this coast...

Merc does tracking just on ordered cars unless you do the euro deliver program, in which then you do get all sorts of super tracking info after the cars built, but its just for the shipping over here.

Smart cars are very easy to build like a lego so Id imagine tracking those awful glorified golf carts is much easier then a Mercedes is to build and track plus it could be made in a few places and shipped into a few as well.

Nonsense!

Nope - saw it in the system itself. It is destined for SA.
It has to be tracked by a bill of lading with a shipping company. As soon as I can get the VIN, I can do it. Just did not know if anyone did it before.
They are built in 1 plant, which happens to be one of the most advanced production plants in the world. Thanks for insulting my car - that's a hell of a way to welcome a new member. Have you even been in and driven one, or are you just spouting off?

AdidasC230,
M-B VPC points for eastern US are Baltimore & Brunswick, GA. The VPC location is printed on the window sticker below the dealer's address. MBUSA has press releases and videos online explaing the system. No worries. My dealership doesn't know where they enter the US either.
As for which plant, I have seen at least one recent arrival from Bremen. That isn't enough information for a conclusive answer. I defer to those with real information.

Wayne
Waiting for a GLK350 4matic to arrive from Brunswick, GA.