I was just wondering if anybody here is from Germany and has some experience with Euro cars.

Thanks

There are several people who frequent the forum who are originally "auf Deutsch." It is not necessary to be from Germany, however, to be familiar with the Euro cars, I have two of them.

Have a great day,

Hi Larry,

I'm just trying to find somebody possibly here in the forum who lives in Germany so that maybe I can buy a car or two through them.

Did you buy yours from Germany or from the US as gray market vehicles? Have you experienced any unusual problems with cars due to the fact that your cars are Euro models?

Thanks in Advance

Both of my Euro cars were gray marketed into the US before I purchased them.

This is a much bigger problem now. The laws are much more strict.

Good luck,

philipminion,

In the heyday of gray marketing, I brought a half dozen or so cars in myself. I wonder why you would want to do that today, as the market forces of the early to mid 1980's no longer exist. The price of the car in Germany, considering the exchange rate for Euros/Deutsch Marks and dollars is very much in line with the US price today. This was not the case in the 1980's as the price of MB's only went up every year when the dollar value dropped, and when the dolllar value suddenly rose, to nearly twice the value it had been when the US prices were set, MB just left the prices high. These conditions made buying the US equivalent car, shipping it and converting it cost about 60 to 65 % of the equivalent model on the US showroom floor. You did not get much of a warranty, but in those days I had little trouble with the cars in the first couple of years. And as Larry noted the procedures are more cumbersome or restrictive (meaning expensive) and the people involved are no longer as easy to find today, so they specialize in models not imported to the US. MB recently closed the last gap in their product line of significance when they brought in the Gelaendewagen and bought out the guy importing these himself. By the way, the MB price for a Gelaendewagen is about half the price the grey market guy was selling them for, which indicates the kind of price penalty you are likely to encounter brininging your own car into the country today.

Good Luck, Jim

__________________
Own:
1986 Euro 190E 2.3-16 (291,000 miles),
1998 E300D TurboDiesel, 231,000 miles -purchased with 45,000,
1988 300E 5-speed 252,000 miles,
1983 240D 4-speed, purchased w/136,000, now with 222,000 miles.
2009 ML320CDI Bluetec, 89,000 miles

Owned:
1971 220D (250,000 miles plus, sold to father-in-law),
1975 240D (245,000 miles - died of body rot),
1991 350SD (176,560 miles, weakest Benz I have owned),
1999 C230 Sport (45,400 miles),
1982 240D (321,000 miles, put to sleep)

There is one very good reason for grey marketing a car to the US if you can do it. That is that you can get cars in Germany that the stubborn folks at MBUSA won't sell us in this country.

Have a great day,

A large part of EuroCars business comes from supplying the Military in Europe.

A friend of mine, in the UK Army, who runs a E-Class 300D bought it from them at a very good price. It came with full UK specs.

I have seen a number of MB's on US Bases to full US Spec and EuroCars certainly can obtain cars to the appropriate US Spec.

Do you know anyone in the US Military serving in Europe as they could get the military discount and then pass the car onto you.

By the way you would not believe how cheap they sell cars to anyone working for NATO HQ.
The parking lot there is 70% MB.
They look at it as the best advertising they can get.

Mike

Hi,

I'm from belgium, living just over 100 miles from the german border. After surfing the web I found several interesting mercedes websites. Most of them are German (I wonder why )

Take a look at:
Google That's the german version, search for the car you want (make sure you check the "O Seiten aus Deutschland" box) and you'll get tons of information about Euro spec cars (MB's).

AutoScout Has a lot of second hand Benzes for reasonable prices.

If your German isn't up-to-date try Altavista to translate the page for you, that works fairly well.