Bluex's 2015 SO F80 M3 European Delivery Pictorial

[jayyp]

Congrats! Love the color. I need to do another ED even though I just did mine in November 2014.

[Bluex]

Originally Posted by jayyp

Congrats! Love the color. I need to do another ED even though I just did mine in November 2014.

Hah, I need to do another one right now and I just dropped her off on Saturday

[///M///]

Awesome thread. Everything is really well captured I will be making a list of questions I have for you as I prepare for my 2016 ED

[Bluex]

Originally Posted by dsm918

Awesome thread. Everything is really well captured I will be making a list of questions I have for you as I prepare for my 2016 ED

Hey thanks! Make your list and fire away......I warn you, after 6pm most nights I was well under the influence of fine beer. My recollections may have been impaired.

[///M///]

Originally Posted by Bluex

Hey thanks! Make your list and fire away......I warn you, after 6pm most nights I was well under the influence of fine beer. My recollections may have been impaired.

Haha. No worries. Can you post your complete route if you made it in google maps? Here is my 16 day plan so far This will probably get revised many times in the next few months especially because if we take our 1 year old

[BrooklynG87]

Beautiful! Incredible! Great photos and thank you for taking the time to compile the details of each day. I want to copy your itinerary exactly so far (if I ever do European Delivery). Congrats and keep posting!

[Bluex]

Originally Posted by dsm918

Haha. No worries. Can you post your complete route if you made it in google maps? Here is my 16 day plan so far This will probably get revised many times in the next few months especially because if we take our 1 year old

Sure....keep in mind, my route was a short all-Germany based route. My wife and I had merely 5 days....

Yours is like a dream itinerary. Next time we're going to do a week in Italy *prior* to delivery in Munich. I am certain my ocd will not allow me to drive in Italy.....Germany, Austria and Switzerland definitely....Italy, not so much.

Originally Posted by FrozenM4

Beautiful! Incredible! Great photos and thank you for taking the time to compile the details of each day. I want to copy your itinerary exactly so far (if I ever do European Delivery). Congrats and keep posting!

Hey thanks, and my pleasure. I didn't take nearly as many pics as I probably should have...I was having too much fun!

[justinco]

Photos in the rain are amazing! I have a half brother who lives in Heidelberg, I hear it is a great place.

Glad to hear the SO is coming back for 2016, one of my fav' colors.

[Bluex]

Originally Posted by justinco

Photos in the rain are amazing! I have a half brother who lives in Heidelberg, I hear it is a great place.

Glad to hear the SO is coming back for 2016, one of my fav' colors.

Heidelberg is *amazing*. It's this great mixture of quaint, old Germany, countryside...just beautiful. Very different from southern Bavaria.

More on this tomorrow!

[///M///]

Originally Posted by Bluex

Next time we're going to do a week in Italy *prior* to delivery in Munich. I am certain my ocd will not allow me to drive in Italy.....Germany, Austria and Switzerland definitely....Italy, not so much.

Interesting you say that because that's the exact plan I had a week ago. I have a thread dedicated to planning that.....Week in Italy prior to picking up the car. But as I started reading more into the ED Italy trips I figured the only challenge on my itinerary will be the big cities so for those I plan to park in a garage well outside the city. Infact the plan is to park in a garage well outside of Florence and us the local transportation to visit Florence, Venice, Cinque Terre and Lucca. For Lake Garda and Lake Como, it looks easily drive-able

[vonmayr]

Congrats on your trip!

[OneRib]

Rain pics look great. Some of the best SO pictures I have seen on the forum. I agree that SO gives you multiple looks depending on the lighting. Far more than many colors. It's an advantage of having a true color and not a shade of white or black.

[///M///]

The first set of pictures taken from the top, it looks orange and then the next set it looks red. Amazing

[stressdoc]

ED

Bluex, next time take advantage of the full 14 days free insurance!

SO is awesome.

I love the pics from the balcony -- I take a few hours to hike the mountains above neuschwanstein, and usually take the footbridge.

[Bluex]

Originally Posted by stressdoc

ED

Bluex, next time take advantage of the full 14 days free insurance!

SO is awesome.

I love the pics from the balcony -- I take a few hours to hike the mountains above neuschwanstein, and usually take the footbridge.

Man, I wish we could have. Due to work obligations, combined with "kid" obligations, we were severely limited this year in getting the right amount of time off. My wife had a conference that she needed to attend and present at literally the day before we left, and I had one the day we came back...no wiggle room on dates at all. All other spring/summer dates were handcuffed by kids activities (hockey/crew/gymnastics/going away to school). We needed to make due with what we had, unfortunately.

But I think we really packed in a good time....we both left happy.

The balcony at Neuschwanstein was someplace I could have stayed all day at. The views were breathtaking, even in the rain.

We saw the footbridge from the castle and I would have liked to take that long relaxing hike....but we needed to take the shortcut in order to make our tour. Next time i'm definitely taking your route......but my route is great if you want an intense workout. Boy those steep steps are insane.

Plus, crazy amounts of newts and salamanders out in the rain that day.

I'm totally in love with SO. I cannot imagine a more perfect color, for me.....and this coming from someone that has never owned a flashy color like that in his life. I always envisioned a LMB or MG M3 in my stable.

[///M///]

Originally Posted by Bluex

Hey thanks! Make your list and fire away......I warn you, after 6pm most nights I was well under the influence of fine beer. My recollections may have been impaired.

Okay here is what comes to mind right now.

1) I have heard the sixt mentioned many times. Is this a free service provided by BMW or do you pay for it? What's the recommended tip for the driver?

2) Along with my family, I will likely be bringing a friend along so we will be 3 adults and a 1 year old (with infant car seat). Still fit in the 7 series? Does BMW allow a guest to escort you at the welt (other than immediate family)?

3) You mentioned the factory tour is a must see but also to makes sure you don't take afternoon delivery? How do you pick the time? I thought BMW only allowed you to pick 3 dates and not the time. I remember some folks on the forum mentioned not to take delivery on a Monday? As far as I can see, the plant tour is open on Monday's. What am I missing?

4) I know Austria requires those vignettes. Did you need any for Germany?

5) My tentative plan is to take delivery, do the tour and heard to Fussen. On the way, plan to see the Linderhof Palace. Spend the nigh at Fussen and see the Hohenschwangau castle the next day. Is the Neuschwanstein a must see as well or should we pick that over Hohenschwangau castle?

6) For the cell phone, did you get a GSM card in Germany? Is the data plan recommended?

That's it for now

Thanks.

[Bluex]

Ok, i'm working on the next pictorial section of this post, but i'll answer the best I can

Originally Posted by dsm918

Okay here is what comes to mind right now.

1) I have heard the sixt mentioned many times. Is this a free service provided by BMW or do you pay for it? What's the recommended tip for the driver?

Free service provided by BMW. Just contact bmw-edpshuttle@sixt.com to make your reservation. They will require your production number and flight information. I don't believe you HAVE to tip, but we handed him a few Euro anyway. He did help with the luggage.

Originally Posted by dsm918

2) Along with my family, I will likely be bringing a friend along so we will be 3 adults and a 1 year old (with infant car seat). Still fit in the 7 series? Does BMW allow a guest to escort you at the welt (other than immediate family)?

The answer to your first question is "yes". The 7 series is large and luxurious. I'm certain you can fit an adult in the front, 2 in the back and the car seat as well. We only had two, but PLENTY of room.

I can't answer fully if they allow an escort as well, as we only had 2 (my wife and myself), however they are so incredibly accommodating I cannot imagine they would give you an issue. Contact the Welt at infowelt@bmw-welt.com just to confirm this with them. For what it's worth, I did see LARGE extended groups taking delivery of a car next to us. They must allow it.

I can't stress enough how friendly they are.

Originally Posted by dsm918

3) You mentioned the factory tour is a must see but also to makes sure you don't take afternoon delivery? How do you pick the time? I thought BMW only allowed you to pick 3 dates and not the time. I remember some folks on the forum mentioned not to take delivery on a Monday? As far as I can see, the plant tour is open on Monday's. What am I missing?

The MUSEUM is closed on Monday, not the plant tour. That is why they say don't pick up on monday's. You absolutely can pick the times you want. If they can accommodate, they will. We HAD to take an afternoon delivery based upon the time our flight arrived and the fact that we were doing the delivery and tour all on the same day. Given a choice i'd do delivery on one day, museum and tour on another. It all also depends on where you're staying as well. I said not to take afternoon delivery due to rush hour traffic....this only really affects you if you're staying at a hotel in central old munich. If you're staying at the Hilton, it's not as much of a big deal.

Originally Posted by dsm918

4) I know Austria requires those vignettes. Did you need any for Germany?

Nope. You require orange emergency vests (can be purchased at the Welt gift shop for 3.50 EU a piece) for every car passenger.

They give you the green environmental sticker required for travel in major cities in Germany (such as Munich). No other vignettes are required in Germany.

Originally Posted by dsm918

5) My tentative plan is to take delivery, do the tour and heard to Fussen. On the way, plan to see the Linderhof Palace. Spend the nigh at Fussen and see the Hohenschwangau castle the next day. Is the Neuschwanstein a must see as well or should we pick that over Hohenschwangau castle?

I can't tell you which one you'd like more. Hohenschwangau Castle and Neuschwanstein are both in the same area (one was the childhood home of Ludwig II and the other one is adult "fantasy" castle). Neuschwanstein is a brief tour....it lasts only about 30 minutes or so....but the views from up top are priceless. You need to make sure you buy your tickets early to get the time you want, however.

Originally Posted by dsm918

6) For the cell phone, did you get a GSM card in Germany? Is the data plan recommended?

That's it for now

Thanks.

Nope, I simply added on an international data plan for Europe through AT&T for like $30. I rarely used it, as most hotels/areas do have wireless. I only used the data plan to check email or texts while out and about. It included unlimited texts but 250 MB of data. I never went over that amount for the time I was there. I used wireless mostly.

I'm sure others have different ideas on this, but this method worked for me just fine.

Glad to help!

[Porsha]

Excellent thread and pics. Thank you for sharing.

[Bluex]

So, in the rain, we headed out of Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein. It was, again, country road driving at first through more quaint small southern Bavarian towns. It was all good sightseeing, to be sure...plus with the rain it wasn't like I was wanting to light it up anyway.

Soon enough we hit the autobahn and after about an hour or so of driving in the rain it slowly began to clear. Again, it was all good because this first part of the A7 was filled with speed restricted zones and construction areas. Even when it wasn't, with the weather we kept it probably at around 90-100 mph.

As someone mentioned before, there were others going far faster. It's actually funny because you'll see people flying by you in vw golf's and fiats doing well over 100mph in the rain.

A positive about driving in the rain was that it was far less buggy, and it did a good job of naturally "rinsing" the existing bugs from the front...lol.

During this stretch on the A7 is also where we got gas for the first time. A shell station right on the A7 (plenty of stops like this all over the place). For those unfamiliar, pumping gas is slightly different over there (as opposed to here in PA). There are no credit card machines at the pump. You pump first and pay afterwards. I used the highest octane they had, Shell "Racing" 100 octane.

Prior to leaving we had Wells Fargo replace our regular bank card with their new "Chip and Pin" version of the card. These cards are what are regularly used in Europe and supposedly more secure. When paying at the gas station, they hand you a little hand held payment device (similar to the US) but instead of sliding the card sideways down (with the stripe) you plug it into the bottom part of it with the "chip" on the card facing up and going in first. It asks for your pin and then you're done. No signing anything. This chip in pin card works everywhere in Germany and very easy.

My wife slid her card in upside down once and the gas station attendant got VERY impatient, lol.

We headed out again, my wife was going nuts because to this point I hadn't put on any music in the car......so as per my statement in the "First Song" thread, I DID play (and loud) "Freedom" by Rage Against the Machine as we peeled out of the Shell station and back onto the A7. I had modified the equalizer with some great settings found in the Audio sub-forums. Lots of great stuff found in that forum and I was very happy with the results of the HK system.

As we got through Stuttgart, I noticed a few things: one was that the number of BMW's on the road significantly were reduced. Far more Mercedes now. And one thing also noticed that held true for all parts we visited, Germans LOVE the badge-delete. There were so many vehicles you just had no idea what they were. Very few actually had badges. Just interesting, because here we Americans look for a reason to slap a badge on something (even if it's not what the badge says it is) and in Germany they just prefer to go all stealth-like.

The roads were now almost dry and by the time I got onto the A8 the sun was out and it was completely dry.

This is where I got to open the car up REALLY good. I was keeping pace with what I am thinking was an Audi RS5 as we were just following one another for several miles....alot of fun.

As we got into Heidelberg (supposed to be a 4 hour drive that was done in more like 3:30) I felt like I had achieved something that the car will never see again...pushing her to a healthy high speed. One she will never see on the regular roads in the US *ever*. The thing is, she felt strong and could do it over and over again.

Heidelberg is beautiful. It's a very old town built around a river that has a strong military academy background (Bismarck stayed at the Hotel we were at....it was a residence for military students then) with a beautiful castle and ruins. The old town is really what you think of when you envision Germany. It's a rowing town and they were preparing for a big regatta the next day (also an AC/DC concert...lol)

We stayed at the Hirschgasse Heidelberg which was this really old bed-breakfast style hotel that was over 500 years old. Service was great, rooms comfortable and very nice (if a bit dated). We felt very welcomed.

We checked in and then headed out on our town exploration that started by walking the "Philosopher's Walk" through the countryside of the town.

By the time we got into the town we were ready for a little bier-garten hopping, so we walked to many places, including the Brauhaus, the Marktplatz, Zum Roten Ochen (The Red Ox...I think?) and finally where we had dinner Palmbrau Gasse. Not much else to say, but lots of good beers and an amazing environment.

A word about the Palmbrau Gasse (not to be confused with the nearby Palmbrauhaus)....we found that restaurant from a thread on here. We had mixed feelings about the place. It was traditional German food, mostly, but the waitress wasn't terribly friendly (yelled at my wife for taking a napkin from another unused table). Our food was decent (lots of sausages/sauer kraut) and it all came out on time...as well as our beers, but we just didn't get the same friendly service. As I said before she once walked away mumbling to herself "Englischer......" She was certainly friendly with all the other local Germans she was around. Just not us for whatever reason. I would say that we wouldn't re-visit there again. Plenty of restaurants in Heidelburg and all the other restaurants we visited there (for beer earlier) were great and friendly.

We headed back to the hotel, went into the restaurant/bar had a nice dessert and coffee nightcap, sat there for 45 minutes longer than we should have because we didn't ask for the check, and they didn't give it...lol. Headed off to bed.

A quick word about the car pics: In the shade of a sunny day the car takes on a new and different character. Some orange and yet also some deep red. It really looks as the pictures captured it.

Also, from all the driving in the rain, the car was fairly dirty by this time and it still looked good I thought.

This section of the trip was the most fun, at least driving wise.

Tomorrow: Day 4---Munich/Drop Off/Augustiner-Keller

[///M///]

Originally Posted by Bluex

Prior to leaving we had Wells Fargo replace our regular bank card with their new "Chip and Pin" version of the card. These cards are what are regularly used in Europe and supposedly more secure. When paying at the gas station, they hand you a little hand held payment device (similar to the US) but instead of sliding the card sideways down (with the stripe) you plug it into the bottom part of it with the "chip" on the card facing up and going in first. It asks for your pin and then you're done. No signing anything. This chip in pin card works everywhere in Germany and very easy.

So I am guessing you are describing a debit card. I will be using a Capital One credit card and they just emailed the card with the chip. Do you need to enter a PIN needed for credit cards as well?

[Bluex]

Originally Posted by dsm918

So I am guessing you are describing a debit card. I will be using a Capital One credit card and they just emailed the card with the chip. Do you need to enter a PIN needed for credit cards as well?

I used both. I also had my capital one card for the bigger expenditures...hotels, ect. Cap One isn't a Chip and Pin, but rather a Chip and Signature card. Slightly different, but same concept. You just sign instead of a pin. I liked having 3 sources of funds (we also took 500 EU in cash with us).

[starbai]

so cool... congrats!

someday i say... someday.