ARRANGING YOUR OWN EUROPEAN DELIVERY

European Delivery sales are arranged through authorized factory dealerships in the United States.  Some dealerships designate one salesperson as a specialist in this area although their knowledge may vary.  Buyers should expect more paperwork (after all, buying a car usually doesn’t involve one’s passport) and need to be aware that the waiting time for redelivery can be six to eight weeks.

The vehicle will typically come with auto insurance for a two week trip.  The insurance can be extended at extra cost as long as this is arranged at the time the order is placed.  Each car is built to the customer’s specifications, and orders should be placed at least three months prior to the desired delivery date, although cars can sometimes be delivered with shorter notice.

Buyers need to be aware of local holidays when making travel plans not only for the delivery and drop-off dates (when these facilities may be closed) but because school vacations and other holidays can result in extra traffic on the roads.

THE TIMELINE

Once you place your order, you should hear back from your salesperson with a confirmed delivery date within a week.  At that point you can begin to plan your trip and book flights and hotel rooms.

All cars are delivered with two weeks of insurance (it’s possible to extend this when placing your order; see the chart for details on insurance options for each manufacturer) and your license plates and registration will mirror the insurance term.

Prior to leaving for Europe, you need to pay for the car (if leasing or financing, you sign the paperwork) and the periods for this vary. BMW recommends seven days prior to pick-up while Mercedes-Benz says 30.

Once in Europe, you go to the delivery center on the prescribed day and drive away with your new car.

You can typically drop the car off in the same city you picked it up in (although not at the same place) or you can (in some cases for an additional charge) drop it off almost anywhere your travels take you in Europe.

All programs include inland shipping to the port, wharfage, shipping to the U.S., customs duties and brokerage fees, and transportation to your local dealership.  In many cases, if you have ordered factory navigation, your car will come with European maps already installed on the system’s hard drive (U.S. maps will be installed prior to redelivery).

When the car comes in, it will be processed similarly to the way new cars (your car is no longer new, in fact, it is a privately-owned vehicle, namely yours) are handled and then sent with a bunch of new cars to your dealership.

MY EUROPEAN DELIVERY

My first European Delivery was a BMW 3 Series (pictured on the first page of this article) while I was a student at the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität Munich (it replaced a European-spec BMW that I had purchased at Autohaus Augsburg which, while delivered to me in Europe, was not a true European Delivery).   I took delivery of the car at BMW’s Freimann Delivery Center, which was replaced by the BMW Welt in 2007.  I was also the first person to take delivery of a new car at the BMW Welt when it opened.  Indeed, in the past seven years, I’ve done European Delivery six times.

My most recent delivery, however, would be my first with Mercedes-Benz:  I was to pick up an E350 BlueTec sedan at the Kundencenter in Sindelfingen.  I placed my order at Helms Bros., the very same dealership I visited when I was 10, and worked with Kathleen Baade and Walter Blum (pictured) on the order.  I picked up the car on August 5, and, in the course of a week and with the help of our European Editor Christian Stampfer, drove from Sindelfingen to Maastricht (Netherlands), from Maastricht to Cologne (Köln), from Cologne to Arnhem (NL), and from Arnhem to the port city of Bremerhaven, where, on August 12, I dropped the E350 off at the offices of BLG Logistics (known as E.H. Harms in the U.S.) for its trans-Atlantic voyage.

The car was immediately booked on Independence II, a Pure Car Truck Carrier (PCTC), that departed Bremerhaven on August 21 and arrived in Baltimore, where Mercedes-Benz’ operates its Vehicle Preparation Center, on September 1.  For a complete look at its voyage, see Shipping the Mercedes-Benz E350 BlueTec to the U.S.

Click here to continue to Page 3 – European Delivery Resources and Comparison Chart

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