Guys,

For those of you who have ordered your cars, what is the exact procedure/process (i.e. when is Netstar entry, production date, when you have to finalize options, getting the VIN number, and anything else you can think off).

I put down my deposit the week before Thanksgiving, and the dealer keeps telling me that I'm in the "queue", and that my car should be built sometime in January, but he doesn't have a date yet. Last check, he said he would know more on 1/2 or 1/3. I still have not finalized my colors/options, and I want to know how much time I will have. Since I don't know the process I don't know how to press him on the questions.....starting to feel a little like I am getting the "run around" for some reason.

 

From the initial order on netstar ( you should be able to get a copy) it takes about a month to the production date ( from 11/13 to 12/18 for me). You need to finalize your order well before the production date, though some changes are possible within about a week I think. From production date you should be able to get a VIN and track. Usually about a month to the states and a week to the dealer from VPC.

 

Then, if I'm "in the queue", does that mean my order is probably placed in Netstar and waiting a production date? I guess I should just ask him for a Netstar printout....

How does it work, does the dealer have a unit allocated to him, and he has to wait until the production date for that unit? I'm just worried that he doesn't give my production unit to someone else that he may have done a "more money" deal with.

 

I don't know what "in Queue" means, but if it has actually been ordered you should be able to have him fax you a copy of the netstar order. The actual production date depends on color and equipment, I think.

 

At most dealers, the inventory person will print out all the production slots daily, and this pile of paper will be well-thumbed throughout the day by all the sales reps.

those cars that have been 'sold' tend to have the customer/sales name in a comment field near the right side of the list.

each slot will have a mercedes PO number, a status indicator (letter and number, B1, B2, B3 get closer and closer to production, B4 is being built/complete, etc.) You should be able to make mods until the slot enters B3 status I believe.

There won't be a production *date* per se, what there will be is a block - MB schedules builds like many other manufacturers in 10 working day chunks, called 'decades'.

Thus a slot in the first production cycle in february 2003 would be D1/02/03, 2nd decade would be D2, etc. Some days they build more cars than others, blah blah blah.

About a week before the decade begins, your car's slot will be frozen and MB won't be able to modify it.

Once the car is built your dealer should have a VIN, and will also see the completion date (after the fact). From that point you can track it on your own - search this board for my post on 'tracking your...in transit...' which has a link to Wallenius-Wilhelmsen's cargo tracking site. From this site you can track the car from the time it's turned over to the shipper to the time it's released to MBUSA in the port in the States.

You can track by Netstar order number OR by VIN - VIN's probably simplest. You can then see the sailing dates for your ship and its scheduled in-port date.

Note, however, that you won't get any hits on the tracking site UNTIL passage has been booked. My car was built on 15 November and didn't get scheduled on the boat til 05 or 06 December. During that interval it was either in Stuttgart waiting to get sent to Bremerhaven, or it was sitting at the port waiting to be out-processed to the boat.

From there, you go back to pestering your dealer.

BMW customers get their own login to an internet website to see specific build date, VIN assignment, etc etc....but Netstar is only available to MB employees, and sometimes they don't even look at it, preferring the dead tree method.

Note that it is usually a 10 day transit from the UK to Baltimore.

For examples, go check noblemercedes.com or prestigemb.com - pick a VIN from one of their inventory cars, and play with the Wallenius Cargo Tracking site. You can see the varied travel times, how some voyages made different stops than others, etc.

(as a side note you can also track how many cars of what type were offloaded at each port - track on the billing number. For my boat, about 2100 cars were discharged at Baltimore last weekend, including 9 SL500 and 9 SL55, along with several hundred E500 and E320 vehicles - you can tell by the VIN what model it is)

 

It could happen. That's my theory on how my D1/11 build turned into a D2/11 actual construction event. Interestingly my Netstar order number stayed the same, so I assume the build slot number (?) and the PO number are different.

Also keep in mind that events beyond their control could slide the build slot back. BMW had a lot of cars on the ship that went down in the English Channel 2 weeks ago, and they immediately
a) contacted their following-week orders
b) told them that their production dates were pushed back 3 weeks
c) rescheduled all the sunk cars for immediate rebuild

(see the thread on 'tracking your car' in the W211 group for links to the BBC's coverage of the sinking)

 

jposhea3,

Do you know if the production block is known immediately when the car is put into Netstar or sometime later when a production block is "assigned"? Going back to my theory, I am worried that they have not put my order into Netstar yet and thus I have no production block, or could my order be in Netstar (with a P.O number) but no production block yet, and that is why they don't know?

Apurva

 

I would think they know now.

Drop by the dealer to chat the guy up, and while you're there ask him to pull up the order, talk to them about how many SL55s they're getting, etc,.something that will prompt him to drag out the list of slots.

They should know through February or March at this point.

After I put my deposit in and we wrote my order (by hand on multipart carbon forms, welcome to 2002), the next day I received a snailmail from the manager with a copy of my order printed from netstar ('print window sticker' is the command in the web app to print this out) with a request that I verify it as correct, initial and fax it back to them.

Ordered 18 oct (fri) targeting a D1/11 build slot, made a few mods on 21 oct (monday), still had the D1 slot as far as I knew, then it was just a weekly call to the salesguy to see how we were doing til it was built on 15 November....

 

I just tried my vin # that my dealer gave me and he said it was on the dock ready to load. I tried it on that cargo tracking site and it said it doesn't have cargo with that #. I tested it with on of the dealerships in Stock VIN #'s and it said that all of them were incorrect. How do you test this system?