kim@fritz.UUCP (Kim Poindexter) (06/11/85)
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I've seen a lot of articles go by asking about acquiring cars in
Europe. As one who has actually done it, I thought I'd add my 2 cents.
There are two ways of purchasing a car in Europe. One is to take
advantage of a car makers "official" European delivery plan. Most European
auto makers offer this, and you can save a modest amount of money .. usually
enough to pay your air fare there and back. You are, however, buying a
U.S. spec car .. no different from the one you could buy at home. Because
of this there is little or no trouble bringing the car into the country.
In fact, the dealer here in the U.S. should handle all of the paper work.
The other way to do it is, of course, the grey market. A grey market
car is one purchased in Europe, with European specs, which you must then
arrange to have shipped to the U.S. Once here, you must put up a bond,
assuring the U.S. authorities that you will have the necessary work done
to the car to bring it into line with DOT and EPA requirements. If you
don't get this done in 90 days, bad things happen .. you may never see your
car. This sounds very discouraging .. but it isn't. You don't have to do
all this yourself .. there are lots and lots of firms whose sole business
is the importation and DOT/EPA certification of grey market cars. You
just have to be sure to find an honest one .. both honest in dealing with
you and (possibly more importantly) honest in dealing with EPA/DOT.
I took the grey market route and purchased an '84 BMW 323i (150hp,
fuel-injected in-line 6 .. what a sweet engine). I've had my car now for
18 months, and have never regretted the purchase. It cost (after $4500
worth of EPA/DOT work) about what a 318i costs here, and outperforms both
the 318i and 325e. I've had no problems with parts or service .. of course,
I'm not really a fair sample as I happen to live in a hot bed of grey market
companies here in Orange County.
The grey market has some advantages the "European Delivery" plans
can't offer. You save a substantially larger amount of money. The more
expensive the car, the more you save. For instance, a new 500 SEC costs
less than 40k in Germany, but will run you around 56k here. A BMW 635CSi
costs about 24k in Germany .. the equivalent here is about 42k. (Now do
you wonder why Mercedes and BMW are so vocally against the grey markey? ..
nice little profit margin they realise here isn't it?). Another advantage
of the grey market is that you can get a car not sold on this side of the
Atlantic (which is really why I have a "grey" car). There is a long list
of highly desirable cars not available here for one bureacratic reason or
another .. MBZ has the 190E 2.3-16 and the recentlty released 300E .. both
screamers. BMW has about 3 times the model range it has here .. including
the hot M635CSi, M535i and M5 Motorsport models.
Of course, to be fair the grey market has drawbacks. For starters,
you have to very very patient. I ordered my car in June '83, and didn't
actually see it until January '84. You also must be very careful that
your grey-marketeer is honest .. you don't want faulty engineering on
your EPA/DOT work .. and you don't want the government mad at you for
filing false certification papers.
If anyone is interested in more details of my experiences in the
grey market .. send mail. I'd be happy to answer any questions.