PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum - View Single Post

Jim B. · #5 03-17-2014, 03:25 AM

As of November 1993 (date on back page of MB dealer directory from my 1995 E420 records) Modesto European @ 3900 N. McHenry Blvd. was the name and address of the dealer then.

Mercedes Benz of Modesto, and its new building is STILL located today at that very same address, 3900 N. McHenry Avenue, and in fact I went in there about a month ago. So a pretty good chance that is the actual location where your car was sold when new. Maybe the VMI got the actual dealer name slightly wrong. But the 5 digit dealer code, on your VMI, if it is the same now as back then, would tend to show it was the same place for sure.

I also have a 1985 MB dealer directory I obtained at a pick 'n' pull up in Washington last year on vacation and for 1985 there was NO Mercedes Benz dealer in Modesto at the time.

You could search out ficticious business names at the Stanislaus Co. Court archives, for those earlier years, and see what comes up, too.

Also, I have one of them in my 1991 560SEC, for about the time your car was delivered, but the car with that one is at the shop, and I can't go check it just yet. That car was delivered new in December 1990.

Meanwhile, you could ALSO perhaps check the County of Stanislaus's County recorder office in the grantor/grantee indices to see if the name in VMI gets a hit on the name mentioned in the VMI. Or Modesto European, for that matter too.

Typically those records can be searched by the public for no fee, and they are on old microfiche tape reels you load and wind up into the viewing machines so you can look at the documents; typically the address and name would appear in the upper left hand corner of the first page below where it says "After recording return to the following address"

Another place to check, is at the City library, the old business directories are often kept year by year. They are like Yellow pages, and work the same way.

Good luck.