I bought our previous BM in Germany and it had much higher spec than the local French ones - heated seats for instance aren’t deemed necessary in the South of France, but they’re still very welcome.
I think the Germans are also more likely to have the maintenance history
I am favoring a older model as they do not come with anywhere near as much electricky gismo`s.
I loved my heated seat on horrible dreich chilly mornings here in s 24, it made driving off to work in the cold & dark much more bearable.
Heated seats were Madame’s sole prerequisite, from the first Volvo onwards.
I can recommend the heated seat and steering wheel combination.
I always thought a heated steering wheel was just silly. Then I got a car with one. Game changer.
Gloves.
They also work when you are not in the car. 
Long ago when I preferred open-topped sports cars, Dents’ leather and string backed driving gloves seemed de rigeur, but in retrospect not so sure, makes me think of moustachioed cinematic cads - Terry Thomas and his ilk…
I am speaking after living in Germany for 26 years. A lot of German cars are highly specced BUT the extras come from the extras on the order form. That’s different from the cars supplied to the U.K. market where they arrive with all the bells and whistles. If you read my post you will see that I was suggesting that people take care, they might well presume that the cars would be the same as those sold in the U.K. That’s not the case. You were lucky others might not be. The last car I bought new in Germany was a Golf GTI and that was not typical as the extras list was very small. Before that I bought a Porsche and it was the opposite. Mercedes and BMW tend to be like the Porsche. You can buy an S Class Mercedes in Germany with cloth seats and steel wheels but of course those boxes are usually ticked. In the U.K. you don’t get the option. Try accepting my posts for what they are.
I thought you were replying to a post about language requirements!
With the second hand car I bought recently I was surprised that there was no service record booklet. The garage I bought it from said that was the norm and offered me a copy of all the details of the servivin* carried out on the car if and when I wanted it.
They’ve been around for a long time now.
Hopefully I won’t have to find out if I agree before next winter. So far I’ve not even thought about trying the heated seats let alone the steering wheel.
Yes that would appear to be the case, so I have been looking at cars on auction sites circa 80s 90s they are dearer than new cars!
Scottish, I previously just suffered 
In my case, they came as standard with the car.
I also like the heated grips on the bike
I picture you in a pair of these, @ChrisMann
They are a real game changer. So simple yet so effective. I also have some nice battery powered heated gloves but they are impractical for my my hivernale camping weekends as the batteries only last a few hours and need mains electricity to charge them. If I ever get another pair I will get ones which plug into the bike’s USB.
I’ve got to admit that I bought a USB powered heated vest when I brought the bike down to the house in December and it was lovely.
I have a heated gillet that’s powered by a powerbank. That’s far more practical than my gloves because I can recharge powerbanks as I ride.
No, sorry; nothing so sophisticated. 
For the car I just have a pair of very cheap woolly gloves from Amazon (probably not wool but some faux-mouton subsititute).
For the bike yes, I do have some posher gloves - Segura (fabriqué en France) for spring and autumn:
For summer a pair of unlined Held gloves from Germany:
And for winter a pair of Belgian Richa Ghent GTX gloves with Gore-Tex etc. (not pictured)
ANTS on fire!
My Vivaro arrived at Ouistreham mid Jan. Mark Rimmer has had my dossier for immatric since the first week of Feb.
Customs biz was all done on line, very slick. Import cert issued 04 Feb.
I then took a full week to strip out the mobile car valeting kit built into the van by AutoGlym. Some of it was not dismantling. It was demolition. It wasn’t supposed to be going anywhere.
20/02. It failed the C.T. on headlights. When I pointed out that they’d passed my Peugeot 307 twice, still on UK h/lights, they said it was because the Vivaro h/lights are higher. It also failed on emissions - sooty exhaust - and mixed makes of tyres on an axle - permitted in UK but not in EU.
Replacement h/lights from Poland €290/pr inc p n p. took a week but one was u/s, so another week to replace. Then the garage had an unusually full diary and another two weeks before they could fit the headlights.
Since than I’ve been trying to clean up the exhaust emissions. A bottle of snake oil and a blast round Normandy at 3k/3.5k rpm - still smokey.
Another bottle of a different snake oil. Still n.g. Useless stuff.
Last week some magic ritual at the garage “It takes 3 hrs - hydrogen … Now run 3-4 days at 3k rpm.” I did 150kms to Granville and around on Friday. I don’t see any improvement …
On Thurs 11/04, the 90th day ‘allowed’ by the insurance company to be on GB reg * Mark suggested he send in the dossier with the CT Fail cert . He reckoned they’d knock it back but at least they would have checked off the other docs. He estimated 4-6 weeks from ANTS getting the CT Pass…
He sent the stuff in on Thurdsay evening. On Friday morning he had confirmation that the CG [ERRATUM] was being issued! Jus’ like that!
So, on the one hand there’s a great deal of flexibility in the timetable to get an import and immatric done and on the other, if you catch ANTS in a good mood they do the biz when your dossier hits their desk!
