Soren,
I briefly looked into this option and found that after shipping costs, federalization and EPA costs, etc. the cost difference wasn't that much. Further, I've heard horror stories of cars that were brought here where the modifications were of very poor quality. Factor in servicing hassles from MBNA dealers and poor resale value and it's just not worth it.

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Glen Tokuhara
Beauty & the Beast and the wagon that could!

Do any of those German E500's have a standatd transmission?

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5 speed '91 190E 2.6 320,000 mi. (new car, fast, smooth as silk six, couldn't find any more Peugeots)
5 speed '85 Peugeot 505 2.5l Turbo Diesel 266,000 mi. (old car, fast for a diesel, had 2 others)
5 speed '01 Jetta V6 (new wifes car, pretty quick)
5 speed '85 Peugeot 505 2.2l Turbo Gas 197,000 mi. (wifes car, faster, sadly gone just short of 200k )
5 speed '83 Yamaha 750 Maxim 14,000 mi. (fastest)
0 speed 4' x 8' 1800 lb Harbor Freight utility trailer (only as fast as what's pulling it)

Jim,
As far as I know, no 500E's were ever built with manual transmissions. The only option is a RENNTech 6-speed conversion...about $20K!

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Glen Tokuhara
Beauty & the Beast and the wagon that could!

Hi Glenn

Well I of cause forgot to think about customs and other fees which need to be paid. But the freight of the car should not be that expensive, even with insurrance to my knowledge, I knew a few people, which imported Texas and California US cars over here to Europe.

And as you state you should be very sure what you are buying, there is no easy return posibility. But my impression is that when you go for a car with stamped service history from a authorized MB dealer, then there is little chnace of problems.

In the UK they have had a lot of problems with the so called "grey imports", japanesse performance cars not imported into the UK by the main dealers. And if they were imported by dealers, it was at extremely hugee prices. So a lot of dealers, refused to service these "grey import" cars. But today the situation has chnaged some to my knowledge, and it's much easier to get them serviced these days.

But it seem that you have the same kind of troubles in the US, totally crazy that dealers can act like that, and force people into buying the cars by them instead of getting the best bargain around.

I have an uncomfirmed estimate of about USD $10,000 for 'federaliztion' and 'EPA' conversion. Also, resale value of Euro 'grey market' cars here in the States is significantly less then U.S. models.

It would be nice to hear from someone who as actually done it.

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Glen Tokuhara
Beauty & the Beast and the wagon that could!

Hi Glen

What actually is EPA ?

But actually a little bit strange that Euro models are less worth, since all here on mercedesshop, want euro headlights, tune engines up to euro specs etc. :-).

But then again we have the oposite here with US performance cars, I just saw a 1997 Viper GTS for 70.000$ in Germany. I guess this price is quite high for you guys in the US ?

Maybe I'm getting the terms wrong, but basically, a Euro car will need to have it's bumpers, lights, glass, and emissions systems modified to comply with U.S. Federal regulations. In the case of >1990 Mercedes there probably isn't much difference in terms of bumpers and side impact door beams. And >1994 lights are basically the same.

The real kicker is that an individual person CANNOT perform the modifications. An 'authorized' shop MUST be used and they can charge whatever they want. That's the problem.

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Glen Tokuhara
Beauty & the Beast and the wagon that could!

I went home last week to London. Was interested to note that large engined MBs and BMWs seem to depreciate relatively quickly when compared to the US.
For example, a 1998 540i with reasonable miles can be had for GBP 18K (approx $24K. The same car in the US would cost at least $37K.
Small engined cars on the other hand, depricate relatively little.
Hence I postulate that the price of large engined cars is less in Europe (allowing for purchasing parity and FX eqivalence) is explained by
1 Demand for large engines in lower in Europe because of high petrol costs. Those who can afford the fuel costs can afford to buy new. hence the size of the secondary market is smaller than in the US (relatively). Hence depreciation is higher than it is in the US, where fuel is cheap.
2 Conversely, demand for small engined cars is high in both primary and secondary markets because of high fuel costs. Hence high demand keeps prices high and depreciation low.
Then again, this could all be wrong... :-)

You are right about the prices in the UK, they are also totally wacky on a lot of large engine luxury barges like BMW, Porsche, Mercedes, Jaguar, Aston-Martin, Bentleys and Rolls-Royces. I saw on TV some time ago that they found a older chauffeur driven Rolls for sale at around £15K

But you also right on the issue about the European fuel price being a reason. But there other things going into the equation as well. A lot of european countries have inssurance policies build up like, the larger the engine, the more you pay. This also quite effectively keeps people going for smaller engined cars, unless they want the extra performance and torque from a large engined car.

You can buy a 2 litre four cylinder car with 240 horsepower, but it aint the same feeling as a big engine :-)

Another issue on the used car market, is of cause maintenance. Almost all european cars with large engines, are luxury cars. And at the time of their creation, they are usually filled with the latest gadgets and gizmos that the producers can come up with. They are also sold in fairly limited numbers compared to smaller cars. So there are more parts that can brake down or fail. All this makes the maintenance and eventual parts costs much more expensive.