My wife and I will be taking European delivery of a new GLC43 in Sindelfingen. We will be flying in the day before and would like to know how long the delivery process takes the day of delivery. We are hoping to start the Black Forest Rally trip at the end of the day. Is this practical? Thanks,

 

We picked up a car by European delivery earlier this month. I recommend you get to the factory no later than 9.30 or 9.45 a.m. Otherwise you may have a longer wait for your car. You can check in first, and then there is a factory tour at 10.30 a.m., which is well worth doing. It ends shortly after noon. You can then have lunch on Mercedes and make your appointment to pick up your car afterwards. The process of being shown the features of your new car can be shortened or lengthened, depending on your preference. It probably isn't a good idea to rush it, since it's your best chance of having your questions answered. Once you drive away, you're on your own. It's worth having them put the speedometer into kilometers while you're in Germany, so you can more easily mind the speed limits (shouldn't drive much over 100 km for the first 1000 km anyways); it will be restored to miles before you see the car again in North America.

Assuming you don't want to dawdle in the Mercedes boutique or make a side-trip before you leave the Stuttgart area to the Mercedes museum back in Stuttgart (we didn't), you should easily be able to leave the factory by 3.00--which gives you some chance of getting out of Stuttgart before the worst of the going-home traffic on your way to the Schwarzwald. But you probably shouldn't plan to drive more than an hour or two that afternoon. For one thing, you will be getting used to the new car. For another, you are apt to be tired that time of day if you flew in the day before from North America. If you can get to one of your destination hotels within that time and then resume your trip the next morning, after a good sleep, that probably makes more sense. Our experience was that every drive in Germany took longer than we expected, mostly because of delays caused by summer traffic, road closures, and construction. That didn't take away from the fun of the trip at all, but it did teach us to be reasonable about how far we could go in a day.

If you aren't going in the summer, of course, the tourist traffic may be lighter, but on the other hand the days will be shorter, so my advice on a reasonable schedule for the day of delivery would be the same. Moreover, if you are returning your car to Mr. Simovic in Sindelfingen at the end of your trip, it's worth using your new navigation to stop off there and introduce yourself on your way out of the factory, since he's only a few hundred meters away. Then you'll be all set to find him again when you turn in the car. For a nice tip he'll hand-wash your car when you return it, before it's shipped away. Otherwise you have to find a car wash and risk getting it scratched up by unruly brushes, because they won't accept dirty cars for shipment. Hope this helps, and enjoy your trip.

 

If you end up going to a car wash in Stuttgart I recommend Mr. Wash (see web site mrwash.de). It is an amazing state of the art high tech. car wash. But it is not cheap. It cost 28 Euros for exterior wash and interior cleaning. A hand polish/buff is an additional 14 Euro.

The car is placed on a conveyor belt for the wash, ending in a little room where heat lamps and hot air dry the car. After leaving the first conveyor belt, if you paid for the interior cleaning, the car goes on another conveyor belt where it passes from station to station where humans perform different functions vacuuming to cleaning the inside of the windows. One great idea is they use compressed air to blow out the dirt from the interior cracks and crevices before vacuuming.

Your choice of free coffee drinks are available while you watch and wait.

 

If you're in a rush, you can probably be in and out of there in an hour or so, just let them know beforehand, even though they say you can't schedule pickup, plan on missing the tour and lunch, and read the owner's manual before you arrive. We spent about 4 hours, but could have easily reduced it by 2-3 hours.

We flew in the night before, and arrived in Sindelfingen at 10a in mid-June. You may have heard that they deliver about 300 cars a day, but that's on the dealership side of the facility for European customers. They only do 5-25 EDP cars daily for US customers. While we were there, we saw several tourists, but only one other EDP delivery. Paperwork takes about 10-15 minutes, but then we had to wait about 45 mins for the rep to find the license plate, so we browsed the gift shop -- no discount for EDP customers -- looked at some of the rare cars on display, and skipped the tour. We were already familiar with the car, so we didn't need much of an intro. It was now about 11a, and we were feeling pretty good, so we decided to stay for lunch. However, lunch took over two hours, but was great! We expected a quick, cafe-style meal, but instead it was a sit down meal away from the cafeteria. Because we wanted to eat early, the food wasn't ready. Surprisingly, they gave us a menu with no choices. They did say that we could opt for something else, but fortunately it appealed to us -- a 3-course meal with a nicely prepared steak. We took a couple of quick naps before the entree and dessert. Then we were done, had to wait another 10 minutes for them to pull the car up front, and then we were gone!

FWIW, the European maps are much better than the US maps, but we were never able to get the traffic to display. You may want to ask them about it. As Forty9 said, there was lots of construction going on around Stuttgart, so expect delays. We called Mr. Simovic before we left the US, and before we dropped off the car. He said that we could bring the car anytime, even after hours if we gave him notice. And as Forty9 said, Mr. Simovic will also hand wash your car, although he doesn't advertise the service, before it gets loaded on the car carrier.

Hope you have fun with your new GLC43!

 

You can cancel and the deposit is fully refundable? I want to change my order to 4Matic but was told it would cost $500 cancelation fee. It is only a cheap GLC, but still. Can someone confirm this? My pick up is June and car is to be built late March.