Hope this is true! Only time will tell! My assumption is that my car was unloaded this week and is sitting in VPC at Baltimore right now...

Difference
 

Does anyone here know the difference between a 2018 and 2019?
Based on past MY for other models, I want to assume:
-New steering wheel
-Add on packages might include more or less
-Being 2018 the first year, hoping 2019 would fix a lot of kinks especially around the ECU.

Any input would be appreciated

major one (for cold climate countries) ... heated steering wheel

What is true is it will be at the Baltimore VPC this Monday. The hoping is that it will be on its way to the dealer, and not held for some reason. Is yours on some sort of Hold at the VCP, or is there just no info on when its going to ship to your dealer?
Cheers,

Just got word my car has been assigned to the Oracle Ace and will be in Brunswick on July 22nd. Weird thing is I can't find a vessel named Oracle Ace on any of the marine tracking sites.

Agreed on it heading for the dealer! No word yet so my assumption is no info

Keep us posted!

Maybe he was as confused as you were with this post

LOL. I notice that after the fact, added from my phone and didn't proof. It is in fact Orchid NOT Oracle.

Glad you found it.

Orchid Ace

Info in the system frequently lags a few days. On 7/11 mine was D1 status.
Here is a slightly older list of production codes:

B3 No Changes Possible
B4 2 Days to Completion
B5 is Production Complete
B7 At Port/Ready to be Shipped
B8 Assigned to Ship
C1 Ship departed
C2 Ship Notification/On Water
CS Submitted to Customs
C3 Cleared Customs
C4 At port
D1 VPC received
D2 Surveyed at VPC
D3 Potential Delay
D4 Ready to Deliver
D5 Released to Carrier
D9 Wholesale/Consignment Pending
F1 wholesaled and invoiced
i1 Retail

Hopefully it is moving along.

Interesting, my e63s wagon is also on the Orchid Ace and scheduled to be in Long Beach, CA on Aug 7. I'm surprised they put it on a boat that goes to an East Coast port before heading south, but maybe that's common.

Anyway, super excited but hoping the release is some time in August.

I think it is. Rather than have my E63 delivered to my dealer here in So Cal following our European Delivery, I opted to have it delivered to Euro Motorcars in Germantown, MD to save the extra few weeks it takes to get from the east coast to the west coast.

While eagerly following the progress of my car towards Baltimore, I also followed the other boats to see how they got to Long Beach. As near as I could tell, the cars are unloaded in Savannah then loaded on another boat to make the trip through the canal.

"I am Jack's complete lack of surprise." Someone else had a car on a boat and their STAR page showed an estimated delivery of mid-Sept. once their car hit the port. They can always change their mind but a good 1-2 month hold was what I had money on considering past experiences.

It's worth the wait anyway.

I'm wondering what happens if the higher tariff is imposed by then... Will Mercedes raise the price of all 2019 cars at that point, or will they make an exception for cars that passed customs before the higher tariff was imposed?

So with the wait until mid sept, if tariffs are imposed, would you still have to pay if your car is at the VPC waiting? Mine had a build date of 7/30 so im hoping it gets completed, shipped and through customs before any tariffs are imposed.

Who knows - that would be up to Mercedes - they could go either way. My guess is that they will raise the price of all unreleased cars regardless of when they went through customs.

Unless some miracle happens, it looks like the tariffs will be imposed sometime in August or early September at the latest. The hearings and meetings are getting wrapped up by the end of this month (July)...

I dont know if i agree MB would raise pricing to match the tariff on cars already here. The US makes up 50% of their market and i know i would cancel my order if I had to pay and extra 25k or more for the car. Im confident a lot of others feel the same way. Hopefully MB recognizes there will be a significant drop in sales and try to get as many cars here before the tariffs as possible.

I think they'll raise them all for consistency and simplicity. A pricing inconsistency depending on when the car passed customs would be a mess with dealers marking up such cars to make extra profit from the run on pre-tariff new cars, etc.

Most customers will just pay the higher price - what choice is there? Prices will go up throughout the whole industry. If you buy a different car, you still pay extra. If anything, buyers of luxury German cars are less price sensitive than buyers of less expensive cars, and they are less likely to want to compromise.