Cranky

I am investigating Designo options on other worldwide MB sites for an E-class wagon I am considering ordering in the US. Based on what I have read here, interior and exterior color/fitment designo options are available in the US. However, the dealer I have been working with tells me that only the standard interior options are available for the E-wagon.

Can anyone confirm this? I'd like to order the car with the X35 leather light brown option... not sure yet whether mauritius blue or iridium silver is the color for me, but you get an idea of where I am going... Many thanks in advance!

PS: I am amazed how limited the design options on these cars are. That MB USA has to hit certain price targets makes perfect sense but if they like other manufacturers want to become more profitable, they ought to try harder to offer value-priced options like designo in their biggest export market. It's nuts that this car (positioned in the luxury segment) appears to be unavailable with 'luxury' trim options. No wonder WW made out like a bandit at Porsche.

Cranky

... I am also a bit perplexed re: what options are available...

I am surprised that parktronic is not available on the US-spec wagon. In the EU, Parktronic is available on the wagons, they even have pictures of the wagons with Parktronic installed. It's not even that offensive-looking. And since I'll be parking a wagon in an urban environment, having parktronic would be useful. Not everyone has valet at the supermarket!

I'm not a great fan either of how many options are being bundled into only three mega-packs. Not everyone wants everything and the factories are set up to produce a wide variety of cars. So why leave all this potential money on the table and dumb down the options that US customers get to chose from? The only good answer I can think of is limiting the variety of SKUs in the US to make training service/maintenance personnel easier.

Oh well...

YYZ-E55

PARKTRONIC is not available because the rear bumper is different EU vs North America. A North American version with PARKTRONIC has not been developed because MBUSA felt that the rear view camera was adequate.

Cranky

Hmmm... fair enough. I had no idea that there was such a thing as a NAFTA vs. EU bumper. What are the differences? Is the NAFTA bumper softer on account of the miniumum 2.5MPH crashworthiness w/o damage that is required in the US?

As for the Parktronic vs. rear view camera, I prefer to look over my shoulder as I was instructed to in the years past vs. using a camera to figure out where the car is. Having an audio feedback re: the distance to the next car or objects below the visible horizon (i.e. parktronic) would seem like a pretty ideal complement to physically looking back there.

Whipping back and forth between looking to the rear vs. looking at the dash to see what the camera can see vs. what I can see over the shoulder seems a bit illogical... especially when the OEM lawyer weasels specifically mention every time the review camera mode comes on that the camera should not be relied on (at least in all the other cars with such a feature that I have driven).

I have yet to test drive the E-class wagon. Perhaps the camera is adequate or even superior to Parktronic. But I guess I would have preferred a choice rather than not being able to choose at all. Ditto on the Designo interior. Anyhow, many thanks for your reply.

ipp

I wonder how many people a year the "EU wagon parktronic bumpers" does kill. Is it more or less than having the US red turning indicators instead of amber?

Dema

MB backup camera is very basic, just view. Even Hyundai Sonata has much better backup camera showing distance marks and steering wheel position to reach certain point.

220S

What does the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have to do with DOT and EPA import regulations on cars produced in Europe?

NAFTA was set up in 1994 to eliminate barriers of trade and investment between the USA, Canada and Mexico......

...never heard of NAFTA in respect of imported German cars.

YYZ-E55

Sorry, NAFTA = North America. Was rushing.

Cranky

It's a regional thing, perhaps some sort of non-tariff barrier to trade and/or grey imports.

IIRC, at least at one point some EU cars destined for the US had to have additional door struts and other reinforcements added to meet US crashworthiness standards. Whether the US standards were superior to the EU ones is debatable (I have no dog in that race).

But such different standard can also serve the purpose of preventing folk from shipping (especially new) cars from one market to the next. Given the discount at which a MB can be bought in the US vs. in the EU, I can see why the EU folk at MB want to differentiate the US spec car in noticeable ways that then entail a conversion that is expensive enough to make legal arbitrage less lucrative.

For example, the front lights in the EU are designed have a triangular pattern relative to the driver, low on the left side of the road and rising toward the right. I think the idea was to better illuminate pedestrians. On the other hand, the US advocates having a flat line set at a certain height. A new set of HID optical components is quite pricey...

As an aside: one thing to watch out for is NOT to drive into a EU garage with a US-spec car without telling the technicians there not to futz with the lights (which is SOP). After my first (and only) such incident, I didn't get to see the road but I got an excellent study in the underwear of birds in the trees above at night, my cars' lights were so out of whack.

Similarly, the French insisted at one point on Yellow front lights, the US had multiple catalytic converters + the CA-inspired emissions control system, etc. In other words, these sorts of regional standards make legal international trade with cars more difficult and hence are (if kept within certain bounds) quite attractive to manufacturers.

Cranky

That's what I was afraid of. I used to occasionally drive my fathers 300 wagon in Europe and there were quite a few garages where I thought I was about to be scraping at least 2 corners at once while descending a corkscrew ramp, etc. Parktronic would have been great for the actual parking bit, which can be just as tight, sometimes.

I'll have a look when I have a test drive. I wonder how many customers insist on trying out parallel parking!

220S

We know all that, it's just that NAFTA has nothing to do with European car imports. It has only to do with tariffs and taxes depending on the percentage of content of origin in the car (Canada, US, and Mexico.)

In the car world it's NA versus ROW. The EPA and DOT have jurisdiction over auto import regulations and restrictions; bumper height, emissions, lens color, headlamps, washers for HIDs, etc.. In the old days we used to import exotics unavailable here and spend lots of money to have them certified to be titled in the US. Can't do that anymore.

Beausoleil

So true. According to page 193 of the 2011 E coupe manual, blue and yellow guide lines are displayed "depending on the date of manufacture." I'm not sure how sophisticated it will be relative to other similar systems.