ED Tips / lessons learned?

[CachacoF80]

Hi All. Need a little input for those who have done European Delivery.

Wife and I are picking up our SMB/Amaro ZCP M3 in the first week of July. We have exactly five full days for our road trip.

Our tentative itinerary includes a morning pick up of the car (10am) followed by factory tour and drive to Bad Tolz to take Alpenstrasse and make it to Füssen by night. Next day will continue on the Alpenstrasse and after reaching Immenstad will head north to Stuttgart and visit the Porsche museum in the afternoon. The following day we will check out the Mercedes museum in the morning, drive to Baiersbronn (apparently Michelin restaurant heaven) and then continue north to Mainz. Next day will drive along the upper portion of the Rhein valley and arrive to the Nürburgring in time for tourist track time. We're doing RingTaxi in the M3 (that way I'll know what the car can do and how bad I am as a driver...) followed by a lap in our car (hope pro driver doesn't scare us too much!). I'm hoping weekdays will be less busy and track is only open for 2h from 5pm. Considering spending the night at Sabine Schmitz' place (Has anyone stayed there?) but open to suggestions not too far from the track. The final day will hit 1-2 Rheingau wineries and then wash/drop off car in Frankfurt. All in all about 900kms.

So...thoughts on route? Advice on things you you wish you had done (or avoided) or places you would visit again or skip? Nürburgring advice and preparation in your own car (I'm not a track rat but have some basic experience)? By the way, is there a smartphone racing app that has the Nürburgring? I can't justify buying a PS4 or XBox...

Any thoughts based on your experience would be much appreciated!

[chriszach1]

Depending on when you get to Stuttgart..you could probably hit both museums. The Porsche museum is not very big.

[CachacoF80]

Thanks, might try to do both then if I've time.

Nurburgring ED insurance, any confirmation whether it's included or not (tourist days)?

[SD ///M4]

In Fussen I highly recommend Hotel Sonne. We stayed there on our 2011 Euro Delivery trip. They have large, reserved parking spots underground. You can easily walk form the hotel to several good restaurants in town. Since you're near Neuschwanstein, make sure you take a picture like this:https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/D9...=w1632-h918-no

If you haven't already watched the video that Dackelone posted in this thread, I highly recommend you do! It was done by Dale from Bridge to Gantry. It was posted almost two months before my visit to the 'Ring, but I didn't find it until after. It explains everything: http://f80.bimmerpost.com/forums/sho....php?t=1348032.

When I went, you could load one or four laps onto your "Green Hell" card. I did four initially. The first lap was done by a good friend who ran the BMW CCA Nurburgring Driving School for over 10 years, several years ago, while I rode shotgun and my wife rode in the back seat. Then I did a lap, then my wife did a lap, then I did another. Then we loaded four more laps, and split them. Don't think that you're going to just do one lap! BTW, since we planned to do three tracks and knew the stock pads wouldn't last, we swapped brake pads on eight cars in Grindelweld (the hotel had a jack). We flew Lufthansa and had a 2-bag allowance, so we loaded up a small suitcase with Pagid RS29s and everything we needed except for a jack. One of the guys who was solo carried that suitcase in his car.

Make sure you visit the souvenir booths. Sometimes they have stuff in one that's not in the other. There's also a gas station outside, make sure you fill up before you go in, and check out the souvenirs there as well. Buy all the swag you could possibly want, because you never know if you'll be back! We bought the obligatory decal for the left rear of the car (goes on the opposite side of your rear M badge, there's a big choice of colors), t-shirts, a hat, a key ring, more stickers, and even a really excellent jacket! There's also a souvenir shop at the main Nurburgring building (shown in the picture): https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/HL...=w1632-h918-no (mine's the Sakhir Orange M4).

You have a very aggressive itinerary, lots of driving in a short time. You will be exhausted. Google travel times are extremely optimistic, don't plan tightly based on Google travel times. Always have a Plan B. Your itinerary is very similar to our 2011 trip, except that we took 14 days to do it, did a lot more sightseeing, and didn't even make it to Nurburgring. After a night in Stuttgart, we had a flat tire coming into Trier on a Saturday afternoon around 1600. We were headed for Cologne to spend Saturday night, then drive to Nurburgring on Sunday morning for Touristenfahrten. Almost everything except restaurants shuts down at 1400 in Germany. We were stuck in Trier until Monday morning when the local BMW service center opened up. We had to buy a new tire (they don't patch tires in Germany), cost us $580. They didn't have the tire in stock, had to wait until they rendezvoused with someone two hours away. We were on our way again after lunch, but we lost our Nurburgring day. We had to make it back to Munich after a night in Rothenburg, and flew out Wednesday morning.

[dim635csi]

Originally Posted by chriszach1

Depending on when you get to Stuttgart..you could probably hit both museums. The Porsche museum is not very big.

CachacoF80 Didn't check your trip dates, but just in case. I tried to book Porsche Factory tour in Stuttgart in July. They close the factory for almost two month on summer.

Thank you very much for your interest in our company and the Porsche Factory Tours. We are delighted that you are planning to visit the Porsche plant in Zuffenhausen.

Unfortunately, we don’t offer factory tours from 16. July 2018 to 14. September 2018. In this period the factory is closed due to our company holidays.

[CachacoF80]

SD ///M4

Thanks for the input, much appreciated. Very useful tips. I do agree that our schedule is tight and will find ways to shorten or have a Plan B if we cant execute on Plan A. Part of the issue is that we thought we could drop the car off on a Saturday and we can't...Frankfurt drop off location is closed on weekends (I think all locations). So we had to condense things a bit.

Did you feel the autobahn (restricted and unrestricted) stretches to be very exhausting to?

Would you skip part of the Alpenstrasse to speed things up?

I'm estimating 180kms per day which should be manageable but my back is not what it used to be (will share long story when I get the car and introduce myself) and don't want to over do it.

[CachacoF80]

Originally Posted by dim635csi

CachacoF80 Didn't check your trip dates, but just in case. I tried to book Porsche Factory tour in Stuttgart in July. They close the factory for almost two month on summer.

Thanks. But museum only seems to be open year round right?

[dim635csi]

Originally Posted by CachacoF80

Thanks. But museum only seems to be open year round right?

Yes. This is what they sent with email reply.