My European Delivery Experience
#52
Member
Thread Starter
Current status as of this morning is "VPC Ready"....can anyone in the know help define? Does that mean its out of vpc and awaiting a truck?
#53
Senior Member
I think our cars will come with the standard US speed limiter already in place cos we are not allowed to get Euro spec cars even though we are driving them in Europe for a few days or weeks. The regional spec determines the build standard per factory procedure.
I was told by the MB factory staff in Sindelfingen to keep the revs/speed at 5000/90mph and below for the break in period. I was good about it for the first 700 miles but on day 9 when we were driving Munich to Stuttgart, I opened her up a bit. 115-120 mph tops cos I had wife and kid with me. Much more than that and I would have had family issues for endangering a 3 yr old etc ... I knew then that that was the max speed my car would go on public roads in its life time cos the next day would be spent in Stuttgart between the MB Museum and the Porsche Museum in Zuffenhausen and the day after that the car would start its journey back to the US. And of course driving Munich to Stuttgart, at 115 mph, an Audi wagon and a BMW wagon flew right by on my left, probably doing 140-150 mph...
For the two of you doing ED, a tip if you visit the MB Museum ( you're supposed to get free tix so why not right ? ), try to get a spot in the parking lot next to some cool display car. I luckily found a spot next to a 300SL Gullwing display car which had actually seen real life service on the roads - its original paint showed minor road rash here and there. That pic of my CLS next to a classic Gullwing is something that will be hard to replicate here in the US. Made multiple copies of this pic for posterity. Hope you get some good ones for yourselves too.
I was told by the MB factory staff in Sindelfingen to keep the revs/speed at 5000/90mph and below for the break in period. I was good about it for the first 700 miles but on day 9 when we were driving Munich to Stuttgart, I opened her up a bit. 115-120 mph tops cos I had wife and kid with me. Much more than that and I would have had family issues for endangering a 3 yr old etc ... I knew then that that was the max speed my car would go on public roads in its life time cos the next day would be spent in Stuttgart between the MB Museum and the Porsche Museum in Zuffenhausen and the day after that the car would start its journey back to the US. And of course driving Munich to Stuttgart, at 115 mph, an Audi wagon and a BMW wagon flew right by on my left, probably doing 140-150 mph...
For the two of you doing ED, a tip if you visit the MB Museum ( you're supposed to get free tix so why not right ? ), try to get a spot in the parking lot next to some cool display car. I luckily found a spot next to a 300SL Gullwing display car which had actually seen real life service on the roads - its original paint showed minor road rash here and there. That pic of my CLS next to a classic Gullwing is something that will be hard to replicate here in the US. Made multiple copies of this pic for posterity. Hope you get some good ones for yourselves too.
![Frown](https://mbworld.org/forums/images/smilies/frown.gif)
#55
#56
Senior Member
MB USA will give you the contact of someone in the logistics company who can tell you things like when your car is supposed to get loaded onto which ship and when the ship gets Stateside.
#57
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: NYC & Long Island
Posts: 336
Likes: 0
Received 1 Like
on
1 Post
'14.5 RR LWB, '14 s63, '14 Ford Raptor Screw, '13 G63
Skerdian - any updates on your end?
my car arrived on Friday in Baltimore. Still waiting for it to go through VPC.
spoke to a few people at my dealer and at MB, they think with the weather, I'm looking at the car leaving Baltimore towards the end of the week.
disappointing as I was hoping for the car this week, but with the snow storms arriving this week, I don't think it's the end of the world
my car arrived on Friday in Baltimore. Still waiting for it to go through VPC.
spoke to a few people at my dealer and at MB, they think with the weather, I'm looking at the car leaving Baltimore towards the end of the week.
disappointing as I was hoping for the car this week, but with the snow storms arriving this week, I don't think it's the end of the world
#58
Member
Thread Starter
Skerdian - any updates on your end?
my car arrived on Friday in Baltimore. Still waiting for it to go through VPC.
spoke to a few people at my dealer and at MB, they think with the weather, I'm looking at the car leaving Baltimore towards the end of the week.
disappointing as I was hoping for the car this week, but with the snow storms arriving this week, I don't think it's the end of the world
my car arrived on Friday in Baltimore. Still waiting for it to go through VPC.
spoke to a few people at my dealer and at MB, they think with the weather, I'm looking at the car leaving Baltimore towards the end of the week.
disappointing as I was hoping for the car this week, but with the snow storms arriving this week, I don't think it's the end of the world
My car was all set to go this past Thursday. It arrived at my dealer Friday morning but I took delivery earlier today, despite the snow.
For all those wondering, car had zero damage. Total travel time from drop off until redelivery: 39 days. Not bad. Total savings, $14k+ including tax difference on what I would have paid sans Euro Delivery.
Will post pics after snow clears up.
#60
#62
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: NYC & Long Island
Posts: 336
Likes: 0
Received 1 Like
on
1 Post
'14.5 RR LWB, '14 s63, '14 Ford Raptor Screw, '13 G63
My car was all set to go this past Thursday. It arrived at my dealer Friday morning but I took delivery earlier today, despite the snow.
For all those wondering, car had zero damage. Total travel time from drop off until redelivery: 39 days. Not bad. Total savings, $14k+ including tax difference on what I would have paid sans Euro Delivery.
Will post pics after snow clears up.
For all those wondering, car had zero damage. Total travel time from drop off until redelivery: 39 days. Not bad. Total savings, $14k+ including tax difference on what I would have paid sans Euro Delivery.
Will post pics after snow clears up.
How many days from the docking to when it arrived at your dealer?
Just curious because my car arrived in Baltimore on Friday night but today would be the first day the VPC would see it.
Do you know if your vessel was a WWL vessel?
The snow is not helping the timing
#63
Member
Thread Starter
Congratulations - 39 days doesn't seem too bad.
How many days from the docking to when it arrived at your dealer?
Just curious because my car arrived in Baltimore on Friday night but today would be the first day the VPC would see it.
Do you know if your vessel was a WWL vessel?
The snow is not helping the timing
How many days from the docking to when it arrived at your dealer?
Just curious because my car arrived in Baltimore on Friday night but today would be the first day the VPC would see it.
Do you know if your vessel was a WWL vessel?
The snow is not helping the timing
My car was on the Don Juan vessel, a WWL ship. You should expect your car end of this week. Which dealer?
#64
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: NYC & Long Island
Posts: 336
Likes: 0
Received 1 Like
on
1 Post
'14.5 RR LWB, '14 s63, '14 Ford Raptor Screw, '13 G63
My vessel was the Torrens, if you go on the WWL track and trace website, could you tell me what the status details are? Your VIN in the cargo ID should pull it up. Mine is at discharged and has been at that since Saturday. Today would be the first day VPC sees it but I'm still at "discharged" and supposedly the details update in real time.
My dealer is MB North Olmsted in Ohio. It takes a day or two to get from Baltimore to them and I see it two days after that (one day to check it over and one day to come back to NY).
If I get it by next weekend I'll be happy, this weekend is not going to happen unfortunately
#65
MBWorld Fanatic!
Hi all,
Interesting to see the delivery times. My '14 S550 4matic was a Euro Delivery on Don Juan and was VPC ready on 2/3/14. ETA to dealer in Pittsburgh is 2/10/14. Can't wait!
I actually did not do Euro Delivery but my dealer in Pittsburgh purchased eight Euro Cars that apparently people ordered and cancelled. Mine was on of those cars.
The dealer sent a sales rep over to Germany to drive the eight cars about one mile from the delivery center to the shipping agent. The dealer delivered it to the shipping agent on 12/16/13 and it looks like it will be at the dealer on or about 2/10/14.
I am enjoying everyone's posts so I thought I would post my own experience here.
Interesting to see the delivery times. My '14 S550 4matic was a Euro Delivery on Don Juan and was VPC ready on 2/3/14. ETA to dealer in Pittsburgh is 2/10/14. Can't wait!
I actually did not do Euro Delivery but my dealer in Pittsburgh purchased eight Euro Cars that apparently people ordered and cancelled. Mine was on of those cars.
The dealer sent a sales rep over to Germany to drive the eight cars about one mile from the delivery center to the shipping agent. The dealer delivered it to the shipping agent on 12/16/13 and it looks like it will be at the dealer on or about 2/10/14.
I am enjoying everyone's posts so I thought I would post my own experience here.
#67
MBWorld Fanatic!
Hi all,
Interesting to see the delivery times. My '14 S550 4matic was a Euro Delivery on Don Juan and was VPC ready on 2/3/14. ETA to dealer in Pittsburgh is 2/10/14. Can't wait!
I actually did not do Euro Delivery but my dealer in Pittsburgh purchased eight Euro Cars that apparently people ordered and cancelled. Mine was on of those cars.
The dealer sent a sales rep over to Germany to drive the eight cars about one mile from the delivery center to the shipping agent. The dealer delivered it to the shipping agent on 12/16/13 and it looks like it will be at the dealer on or about 2/10/14.
I am enjoying everyone's posts so I thought I would post my own experience here.
Interesting to see the delivery times. My '14 S550 4matic was a Euro Delivery on Don Juan and was VPC ready on 2/3/14. ETA to dealer in Pittsburgh is 2/10/14. Can't wait!
I actually did not do Euro Delivery but my dealer in Pittsburgh purchased eight Euro Cars that apparently people ordered and cancelled. Mine was on of those cars.
The dealer sent a sales rep over to Germany to drive the eight cars about one mile from the delivery center to the shipping agent. The dealer delivered it to the shipping agent on 12/16/13 and it looks like it will be at the dealer on or about 2/10/14.
I am enjoying everyone's posts so I thought I would post my own experience here.
Update on my Euro Delivery car. It is at the dealer. My office is 1/4 mile from dealership. I drove by after coming back from a meeting . I saw the approximate 8 Euro Delivery cars being unloaded and confirmed mine car was in the group.
I have set up delivery for 9am Friday morning.
#68
Member
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: NYC area
Posts: 89
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
10 S550 4matic Palladium, 12 G550 Edition Select Silver, 10 BMW 128i Cabrio Blue Water
Hi all,
Interesting to see the delivery times. My '14 S550 4matic was a Euro Delivery on Don Juan and was VPC ready on 2/3/14. ETA to dealer in Pittsburgh is 2/10/14. Can't wait!
I actually did not do Euro Delivery but my dealer in Pittsburgh purchased eight Euro Cars that apparently people ordered and cancelled. Mine was on of those cars.
The dealer sent a sales rep over to Germany to drive the eight cars about one mile from the delivery center to the shipping agent. The dealer delivered it to the shipping agent on 12/16/13 and it looks like it will be at the dealer on or about 2/10/14.
I am enjoying everyone's posts so I thought I would post my own experience here.
Interesting to see the delivery times. My '14 S550 4matic was a Euro Delivery on Don Juan and was VPC ready on 2/3/14. ETA to dealer in Pittsburgh is 2/10/14. Can't wait!
I actually did not do Euro Delivery but my dealer in Pittsburgh purchased eight Euro Cars that apparently people ordered and cancelled. Mine was on of those cars.
The dealer sent a sales rep over to Germany to drive the eight cars about one mile from the delivery center to the shipping agent. The dealer delivered it to the shipping agent on 12/16/13 and it looks like it will be at the dealer on or about 2/10/14.
I am enjoying everyone's posts so I thought I would post my own experience here.
#69
MBWorld Fanatic!
Dealer is Bobby Rahal Motorcar in Wexford, PA. Bobby Rahal also owns Mercedes Benz of Pittsburgh. These are the two largest dealers in Pittsburgh (They are an absolutely 1st class dealership--I have purchased MBs from a number of places around the country in the past as well).
They were given the option, along with other dealers, to purchase Euro Delivery Cars (this was on top of their normal allocations). I believe there were 36 Euro Delivery Cars on the Don Juan Ship that mine was on that were cancelled ED cars. My understanding is that MB in Germany "always" has some cars that people cancel and they ship them out to dealers as part of their normal allocation. But because the allocation of '14 S550 4matics have been limited to the US dealers, MB decided to "clear the deck" of the cancelled Euro cars and not keep them in a "pool" for people who want to do Euro Delivery on short notice. In other words, the demand in the US is higher than the supply so they wanted to sell the Euro Delivery cars ASAP.
So good question since I attempted to get the 7% ED discount but the dealer "said no way". They offered a 3% discount to long standing clients like me. I do not know if they have sold all the Euro Delivery cars since they have not had a 4Matic on their lot since late November. They pre-sold all their allocations to people who have ordered the cars.
I did sell them my 2008 S550 4Matic before the end of 2013 and I am positive they made good money on that car since they sold it in less than one week. I am a fanatic about taking care of my cars.
I have purchased 7 MBs from Bobby Rahal since they opened in 1997 (mostly S Classes, with one E Class, and one ML) so I had a little bit more leverage than the 3% offered but not much since dealers appear to have had a difficult time getting S 4matic Sport package cars. I believe a lot of the supply went to China in the early going of production.
Hope this helps!
Last edited by MTrauman; 02-06-2014 at 06:40 PM.
#70
My Euro Delivery adventure is really starting to feel real to me now that I got my "package" delivered in the mail yesterday with my car vouchers, hotel certificate , etc. March 28 is the day we leave for Stuggart. 44 days left to go.
When i talked to herbert last night, he estimated my car would get back to me by mid-June with a April 3 drop off date in Zurich. Dropping the car off outside of Germany adds some time i guess. My lease on my Infiniti isn't up until July, so that good. Get this..I call Infiniti to see if i can drop the car off a month early. They said, sure..make the last payment (july) and you can drop it off earlier if you like. My response. That car is sitting in my driveway until July 31st and BTW..i will never buy a Infiniti again. Their customer service is the worst...
When i talked to herbert last night, he estimated my car would get back to me by mid-June with a April 3 drop off date in Zurich. Dropping the car off outside of Germany adds some time i guess. My lease on my Infiniti isn't up until July, so that good. Get this..I call Infiniti to see if i can drop the car off a month early. They said, sure..make the last payment (july) and you can drop it off earlier if you like. My response. That car is sitting in my driveway until July 31st and BTW..i will never buy a Infiniti again. Their customer service is the worst...
#71
Senior Member
It's going to be a wonderful experience. You will really enjoy it. My sales guy back at the dealership was so envious that we got to see the MB Museum with all its MB history in Stuttgart. We also took some scenic shots of our car traversing the Alps. Check out the competition in Zuffenhausen, Munich and Ingolstadt if you have the time. Enjoy !
#72
We get in a couple of days before the car pick up so we are going to the MB Museum and try to get to Munich to visit the Welt. From there it's Switzerland (free night) Lake como, Zurich to drop the car off and then taking the TGV nonstop to Paris, then home a couple of days later. It's my first trip to Europe and my first Mercedes, so this is going to be something. I've been planning this for over a year. If anyone else decides to do this make sure you use Herbert at MB Escondido. Extra discount for out of town customers.
It's going to be a wonderful experience. You will really enjoy it. My sales guy back at the dealership was so envious that we got to see the MB Museum with all its MB history in Stuttgart. We also took some scenic shots of our car traversing the Alps. Check out the competition in Zuffenhausen, Munich and Ingolstadt if you have the time. Enjoy !
#73
I think that was record delivery time! Loking forward to the pictures...
My car was all set to go this past Thursday. It arrived at my dealer Friday morning but I took delivery earlier today, despite the snow.
For all those wondering, car had zero damage. Total travel time from drop off until redelivery: 39 days. Not bad. Total savings, $14k+ including tax difference on what I would have paid sans Euro Delivery.
Will post pics after snow clears up.
For all those wondering, car had zero damage. Total travel time from drop off until redelivery: 39 days. Not bad. Total savings, $14k+ including tax difference on what I would have paid sans Euro Delivery.
Will post pics after snow clears up.
#74
Not really, otherwise they wouldn't do it at all. They don't tell you this, but MBUSA gives dealers 10% of final sale price. And this is not related to bonuses, allocations, etc. One of the stipulations is that 7% is taken off automatically. However, you may negotiate higher, which will just be less money out of that 10%.
Sure, I guess they would make much more money on a brand new S off the lot, however, this is program is pure paperwork and phone calls, so not too bad either. Its sort of like extra income for the dealership.
In any case, I'm not expert. I've just been doing alot of research these past few months and the bottom line is that instead of paying full msrp, i'm paying way less, which let me option the car a little better for my budget.
Only real downside- The month long wait for redelivery.
Sure, I guess they would make much more money on a brand new S off the lot, however, this is program is pure paperwork and phone calls, so not too bad either. Its sort of like extra income for the dealership.
In any case, I'm not expert. I've just been doing alot of research these past few months and the bottom line is that instead of paying full msrp, i'm paying way less, which let me option the car a little better for my budget.
Only real downside- The month long wait for redelivery.
Your correct, I just got back from picking up my C63 AMG 507 there. The dealer gets 10% of final price and they get their check cut the day you sign paperwork, which for me was 30 days prior to my trip.
I was told 11 weeks from drop off from the IFF lady,
I dropped of in Frankfurt on 2/3 and tracking says ETD: 2/23 ETA:3/7, your saying with zero damage I should have my car mid march?
BTW, I almost used Herbert as well, my dealer is the worst with this purchase. They screwed everything up and I mean everything. MB of Freehold, NJ . but, I got 14 off from them after all the rectifying of screw ups.
Last edited by autockr989; 02-20-2014 at 06:48 PM.