What does this mean?
986 DEVIATING VIN WITH MODEL YEAR
The car I'm looking at says it's a 2011, but this VIN check says delivered to USA:
Delivery date 07 12 2009
Is the car a 2009 or a 2011?
Are you talking about the VIN WDBSK7BA8BF161762?
Very interesting question

Your car was produced at the end of the 2009 year. And it must have 2009/2010 model year in the VIN. But with the some reasons Daimler in the VIN was marked 2011 model year. It's not a mistake with this car. Here you can see the data for the next car with the VIN WDBSK7BAX
BF16176
3:
https://carinfo.kiev.ua/cars/vin/mercedes/vin_check?su=udzcedflgqniBoth of this cars where released from conveyor at December 04, 2009
What date of manufacture you can see on the homologation label with the VIN in the doorway? Can you show picture of this label?