I placed a deposit on an E500 this past Saturday. My local dealer is to search for the vehicle tomorrow.

I originally requested, as minimum options, an E500 in Silver/Charcoal, Sports Package, Heated Seats, Panarama Roof, and H/R sound systems.

I'm thinking about changing the seats to AVS. I've read mixed reviews on this board, but would like to hear others. Your thoughts???

The BIG QUESTION is with respect to the Panarama Roof. I've begun to question the external estethics; particularly, on a Silver vehicle. I test drove a dark vehicle and it seemed to blend in very well. Will this look like an 'unfinished' roofline or breakup this cars lines too much when combined with Silver?

I know at the end of the day, its my decision. However, I do respect the opinion of these forums.

thanks...vjd

 

Hi, vdimemmo!

I agonized over this before I finally bought this color combination, and I must admit that I absolutely LOVE it in person. I don't know how I ever could have questioned it! Here are a couple of photos of my car!





Color combinations are really a matter of personal taste, and you can see that by the colors everyone here has chosen. But I think that the brilliant silver/charcoal with the panorama roof makes a classic bicolor combination that is very rich, classy, pretty, and practical. Can't beat it!!!

 

I would add the Drive Dynamic Seats. I did not and got the Multi contour..should have ordered the DD Seats to get the pulse massage feature. The brochures said the multi-contour included the pulse feature..does not

Do not forget to include the Wood Wheel.....one of the best features on the car. Search the forum under wood wheel and read what others have to say. Changes the whole interior.

Ed

 

" Do not forget to include the Wood Wheel.....one of the best features on the car. Search the forum under wood wheel and read what others have to say. Changes the whole interior."

An absolute MUST have! Get the wheel.

 

Can you get the wooden wheel with the sports package? Do you get a black bird's eye maple steering wheel?

-NavNut

 

Yes you can, I have mine in black bird's eye maple. Check this picture.

 

I highly recommend the pano roof. My car is pewter and I think it looks great with the roof. It is the one feature i get the most compliments on. Good luck

 

Ok... that clinches it... I hate to say it, but the normal leather wrapped steering wheel always looked kind of cheap to me... It just didn't fit the rest of the interior (just my opinion... I don't mean to tell you guys without the wooden wheel that you have an ugly baby...)

I just didn't know if they made the wheel in black birdseye maple to match the sports package, which is a must in my book...

The dealer wasn't even sure if the wheel came in black... He had told me that if I ordered the wheel and the sport package, I might have to delete the maple and go back to the walnut (which is also nice but doesn't match the sport interior as well...
That looks good...

Thanks.

-NavNut

 

I think your color choice is great. I have just finished about 2 weeks of research before ordering an E500 Sport. I am sure that you are (were) as overwhelmed by all the decisions to be made when investing that kind of money. I ended up with Tectite/Charcoal E2, CD changer, AVS, Keyless Go and wood wheel. Took me FOREVER to finally decide, it was even worse because I ordered to build so all the options were open.

I will offer my opinion on the roof. I agree that it looks real nice on a non-sport model. Looks classy, especially in silver. However, when I considered it I thought that it may be a little too classy and detract from what I was trying to accomplish ie, sportiness. I also was not thrilled about having the sunshade (required I believe on the Panoramic roof).

I drove a car with the AVS and I thought it was really neat. Espsecially when you compare the difference between the heated seats and the AVS, the AVS just isn't that much more when you are talking about living with the thing for a long time (At least I am, my wife has made it clear that if I don't live with this one for at least 4 years that I may not be living with her that long!).

Of course it's all a matter of individual taste and I'm just offering my personal opinions and certainly don't mean to rain on anyone's parade who outfitted their car different than I did mine. If thier weren't choices we would be back to what Henry Ford said about car colors "They can have any colory they want as long as it's black"

BTW. What kind of deal are you getting quoted?

 

I haven't negotiated the final price since we haven't put in the factory order or even finalized the PO... I have given them a down payment though (this was probably dumb, but I was led to believe early on, that I needed to get in a deposit to secure a spot in the factory assembly line for European Delivery for July... I was told that they only do a certain number of Euro Deliveries per month and I needed to get in that queue otherwise I might get shut out completely. - I know, I know... probably nonsense... but I don't think that matters. I was told that the exact options and PO we would do later, but we needed to get in that queue...)

In retrospect, given what I've read about Euro-delivery programs since then, the only queue I'm in is probably in that dealership's "need to touch bases with this guy"-queue and there is no official queuing up with MBUSA or otherwise...) There's probably a fair chance that if you walked into a dealership today, and told them you needed a car in Europe in about a month, they could probably do it... but in any case...

Dealerships actually win quite a bit on the Eurodeliveries... they have no stock... it doesn't come out of their allocation... it costs them less... BMW actually gives you a pretty big discount right off the top for taking delivery in Europe. Apparently, MB used to do the same and has only recently stopped giving lower Dealer Invoice/MSRP quotes for Euro-deliveries...

So I think the Euro-delivery thing combined with the lousy economy should give me a pretty good position to negotiate the final deal. Without a PO or negotiated deal in place, I don't think it should matter that they have my down payment. If we can't arrive at a deal, and they want to be jerks about it, I suppose they can put up a problem in returning my deposit, but I think that would be very bad for them to do this in the long term... they would lose a whole lot more than just this sale and the next n sales to me... it just wouldn't be bright - not that I'm saying that dealerships and salesmen always do the bright thing.

Maybe that's a whole other thread... how dumb was it for me to put down a deposit without a negotiated PO in place?

-NavNut

 

As long as they said invoice and "fees" I think you are OK unless they get outlandish with the fees. What are you ordering? I think I can figure the Invoice pretty close if you want me to give it a whirl. I worked on my numbers a lot before I ordered.

 

Actually, I have the Dealer invoice and MSRP figures all in a spreadsheet that I can just check off options and change dealer markup percentages and sales tax stuff to get bottom lines on all this... It helps give me an idea of what a good deal would be and what I'm really in for...

I'm not at my laptop right now... I'll post it later tonight and you can always sanity check it...

-NavNut