Anyone ordered from Allgäu-Automobile in Germany yet ?

cyr · Jan 22, 2022

Hi all,

I am a French man living in south France, Montpellier, and I am new to this website, and I don't own a California yet.

I ordered a Beach Camper in august 2021 from an agent in Germany, called Allgäu-Automobile, and based in 88279 Amtzell, Germany.
Their business is to reimport California from VW Austria back to Germany, with a discount between 25% to 30%.
To my surprise I didn't pay any deposit when ordering the car, the amount shall be paid when picking up the car. They say that as long as I don't choose too unusual options they won't have an issue to sell the car to someone else in case I drop the order.
As I don't speak German and they don't like to speak English over the phone, mine is not so well, I am having difficulties trying to get information about the status of my order.

So my question is, has anyone heard or ordered from this company yet ?
Best regards,
Cyril

Kemper-van · Jan 25, 2022

I used the same company late 2020. Got a nice Beach, good price (clearly lower than others at that time, van delivered within 2 months). Indeed no deposit, but also no possibility for further negotiations.

Communication is indeed not always easy (Don’t speak German either), but email + google translate got us where we wanted. I also found some positive user experiences on the german forums, which I looked up & reviewed before ordering with them.

Cheers

cyr · Jan 31, 2022

Kemper-van said:
I used the same company late 2020. Got a nice Beach, good price (clearly lower than others at that time, van delivered within 2 months). Indeed no deposit, but also no possibility for further negotiations.

Communication is indeed not always easy (Don’t speak German either), but email + google translate got us where we wanted. I also found some positive user experiences on the german forums, which I looked up & reviewed before ordering with them.

Cheers

Thank you for your answer, that's nice and reassuring.
I wondered if I should start looking elsewhere or not.

Well I'm crossing my fingers to have it before the summer all the same.
Have a good day,

Cyril

Calimili · Jan 31, 2022

This dealer doesn't even have a website...
I was looking at similar "reimport" dealers in Germany, to get the 25% discount. It turns out an Ocean sold in Germany doesn't have the same specs as Ocean in other countries. Some of the standard accessories included in a "German" Ocean are not included in an "Austrian" or "Begian" Ocean. Sometimes evident like alloys wheels, the full front opening on the pop top, sometimes some other accessories in the camper department.
Since I could get 17% from an official VW German big dealer (with website!), the 8% difference (25%-17%) on a 80k € van was just 640€. For 640€ I got to follow the production schedule online via VW, the option to collect from the factory for a small discount, including tour of the factory + lunch, and avoucher of 10% on any accessory item I would purchase from the factory shop, in my case I choose the most expensive item, the tailgate bike rack, so saved right there 70€. I also didn't need to put any down payment.
So in the end , I could have saved maybe a couple hundred euros, but to me it wasn't really worth, all considered.

cyr · Jan 31, 2022

Calimili said:
This dealer doesn't even have a website...
I was looking at similar "reimport" dealers in Germany, to get the 25% discount. It turns out an Ocean sold in Germany doesn't have the same specs as Ocean in other countries. Some of the standard accessories included in a "German" Ocean are not included in an "Austrian" or "Begian" Ocean. Sometimes evident like alloys wheels, the full front opening on the pop top, sometimes some other accessories in the camper department.
Since I could get 17% from an official VW German big dealer (with website!), the 8% difference (25%-17%) on a 80k € van was just 640€. For 640€ I got to follow the production schedule online via VW, the option to collect from the factory for a small discount, including tour of the factory + lunch, and avoucher of 10% on any accessory item I would purchase from the factory shop, in my case I choose the most expensive item, the tailgate bike rack, so saved right there 70€. I also didn't need to put any down payment.
So in the end , I could have saved maybe a couple hundred euros, but to me it wasn't really worth, all considered.

Hi,
Indeed it is not a bad calculation considering the initial purchase price, you did well.
Well I finally got an answer from Allgäu-Automobile today! Where I learn that it has no production date yet, great.
Do you know what the waiting time is once the vehicle goes into production?

Calimili · Jan 31, 2022

well that was 2019, before the camping van euphoria that started in 2020...
I think the production is just a matter of a couple of weeks....
Fingers crossed for a quick delivery!

Kemper-van · Jan 31, 2022

In my case, official dealer discount was limited to a mere 8%, on a van that was yet to be build. Dealer could not give an estimate for production. On top, I had to educate the dealer on his own offer (registration as camper vs as an MPV - we are talking about a Beach) and got a nasty reaction from dealer after deciding not to order from him after he showed me his incompetence…. Won’t be returning there.

With Allgau, I got a van from a pre-order, with all the options I wanted (LED, heater, 4motion, pano-roof…) within 2 months of my ordering date at a bigger discount than what dealers could offer.

So, in short: yes, for me this was worthwhile, but everyone is free to make his own decision and calculations.