Car purchase in Germany

Did this MANY years ago -- picked up a VW convertible at the factory in Osnabruck, drove it for several weeks through Netherlands, Belgium and France and shipped it home from Paris. Car arrived in San Francisco about 2 months later in good condition (except for the cuckoo clock we had shipped in the trunk -- it never sang again) Since this was in a different millennium I can't comment on the relative economics of buying and shipping versus buying here, but the driving was fun.

Your local dealer can handle a lot of the paperwork for you.

I bought one two years ago from a certain company based outside of Stuttgart that you may have heard of...

My situation was likely different from your's since I'm a non-citizen resident of Germany. I arranged the sale through a local dealership, obtained the registration plates from the appropriate government agency in my district, then went to Sindelfingen to pick up the car at the factory. They offered a tour of the factory, but I wasn't able to arrive early enough in the day to take advantage. After meeting with reception to formalize the sale, I waited around in a loung for about 30 minutes, then they drive the car into the delivery hall. The representative orients you to the features of the car, you sit in the driver's seat, and you're off!

A friend of mine ordered a Porsche and invited me to come along for the pickup at their secondary factory in Leipzig. This was quite a bit more of a ritzy affair. Porsche also offered a factory tour, but the rest of the experience was more of a... well, a "Porsche experience". They showed an adrenaline-rush film about the company's history (skipping, of course, most of it's activities in the 1930s and early 1940s) and various lines of automobiles, then there was a champagne lunch of excellent food, served by probably the most physically attractive young men and women in the Leipzig area. It was a pretty shameless "bring a friend" marketing technique, but I admit... it almost worked on me, until I really crunched the numbers. Much more of a show than that other Stuttgart-based automobile company from whom I bought my car.

As has been noted, the only feasible way to do it is to work with a dealer or program that does this often, and arranges shipment and import of the car to the US for you...though I guess you did not indicate that your intention was to bring the car back.

Another option, aside from prearrangement, is to take advantage of dealers near Military bases, they do this all the time, both for just local use and for export, so they know the drill.

As for cost effectiveness, I have not done the numbers, but doubt that it is much of a bargain, especially for common models of cars. Main attraction is access to models that you may not be able to easily get here.

One of the main issues of course is that any car you bring back needs to be manufactured for, or modified to, US DOT regulations to be imported, unless it is 25+ years old, then another set of rules apply.

Thank you for your comments. Yes my intention would be to ship the car back. I am considering doing this through BMW. The local BMW dealership in Spokane WA, says there is about a 5%-7% savings by purchasing the car in Germany. After all is said and done it may not be a significant savings but like most travel it is for the experience. It sounds like there is a lot of homework to do. Thank you again for your advice and suggestions.

I posted some comments about this previously in https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/germany/buying-a-car-for-delivery-in-germany that may be of interest to you

As for "worth it", if you figure that a 3-series is around $50K then a 7% savings is $3,500

One of the potential savings with this is by picking up your new car in Europe, you don't pay for a rental car for that trip - so make it as long a trip as possible.