Bluex's 2015 SO F80 M3 European Delivery Pictorial

[Bluex]

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*Day One --- Flight/Delivery Day*

I'd like to preface this by saying this has been a long time coming for me. This is my first M3, and first BMW for that matter. For as long as my wife and I have known each other (23+ years) she has known how much I love the M. While the brand has gone through years of changes, and so have our lives (kids, jobs, ect), she's never stopped hearing about how it was a dream of mine to own one, one day. Good fortune, hard work and determination has allowed this to finally happen......My wife simply said "I think it's about time". And then the planning started.

My Build:

15TN M3 Sedan
B50 Sakhir Orange metallic
X3SW Black Full Merino Leather
2MK M Double-clutch Transmission
2VF Adaptive M Suspension
2VZ 19" Black Light-Alloy Wheel 437M
496 Heated Rear Seats
688 Harmon Kardon
ZLP Adaptive Full LED Lighting package

This thread will incorporate a ton of pics, a few things I noticed along the way, as well as some restaurant and hotel reviews all at the same time and will have multiple parts. These forums have been an invaluable resource for me in this planning. I cannot say how much the people on this board have helped. Without further adieu:

We took the 6:30pm flight out of PHL scheduled to arrive at 8:30am the following am:

For OneRib , the flight itself was great. It was on an Airbus A330/200 with a 2/4/2 seat configuration (in economy). While it felt a bit cramped, basically felt like a domestic flight, to be honest, it still was a good flight. 2 full meals, dinner and breakfast (beer and wine free) as well as a snack and several beverage services. Full entertainment system on seat. It was small, but functional. It's no 777 by any means (or the 787 Dreamliner) but it is a non-stop flight that literally had zero hiccups and silky smooth landing in just a bit over 7 hours. My complaint was that the seats were uncomfortable....but that was it.



We arrived on time, but Passport Control was a bit packed....people were saying they had never seen it so overrun. It set us back a bit, as we quickly had to hit the restrooms to do a quick change and then look for our Sixt driver. He was a man of VERY few words. In fact, I think all he said was "hello" and then drove us to the Welt. I tried to engage him a little, but I am not sure how much english he spoke, if any at all. The vehicle was a brand new 7 series...and very comfortable. Great way to head out to the Welt!



Upon arrival we immediately went to the Information desk and the wonderful staff at the Welt took our baggage to later deliver with the car at delivery. They then lead us upstairs to the Premium Lounge where we began all of our paperwork. I cannot speak enough as to how professional, courteous and helpful the Welt staff was. Everything was handled with the kind of efficiency you would expect from the Germans. No issues.

After the paperwork was all finished we enjoyed the lounge for a bit, shopped at the store, toured the exhibits and then headed off to the factory tour.

Whoever has an AY F82 M4 that was in production last week, I actually SAW your vehicle being built. In fact that crucial moment when the chassis is coupled with the drivetrain/suspension...when it finally became a car. The factory tour is just amazing. The robotic dances were something else....but when you see that part when the drivetrain/suspension is plugged upwards into the chassis....it was just super cool. Extra cool that we literally walked through that part of the tour as the M4 was being worked on. Our tour guide was efficient and strict...i'll leave it at that. People were asking about the differences between the M cars and the M sport packages and she was quick to state how they were not "true" M cars...

Incidentally, my wife loved the factory tour far more than she thought she would.



















Then came time for the delivery. I can't really explain the level of excitement when you see your car for the first time...especially after you've been waiting for it for so long. You see it sitting there, turning, in the spotlight and it's almost like seeing your child being born (lol...I say almost!)

Rudolph was a fantastic Delivery Specialist and gave me plenty of time on the steps to just look at it, take pictures, talk to me about my experience with the brand, my plans in Germany, ect...before leading us down and then literally going through everything I needed to know. They are as detailed as you need. Additionally, he handed out the gifts: the Bucherer stopwatch voucher and the Harmon Kardon Bluetooth speakers. As he handed over the latter, he stated "This is for our Harmon Kardon customers....it's very nice, worth about 125 EU."

He went through and plugged in our hotel in the Nav unit. Yes, still using the USB maps, and they still instruct NOT to take it out.....but he mentioned not to worry about it if a message comes up asking for a "code". He says "There is no code needed." He paired my iPhone and did worked with a few settings on the digital display computer.....a particularly helpful thing was putting it so it digitally displayed the speed being driven but changed the metric to KPH instead of MPH. So while the analog speedometer only showed MPH, the digital showed me KPH the entire time. Very helpful. He finished up, I spent another 15 minutes taking pictures and then took my victory lap and off I went!

Oh and i've NEVER taken delivery of a car with only *ONE* mile on it.






























To be continued!

[chris s]

congrats! Love SO...

[GOLFFRR]

love it! congrats

[AlexN]

Congrats! Enjoy your ED.
We did one back in 2011 and that still remains one of the best vacations and the most memorable one.
BTW - how did you get a SO 2015 M3? did you have to pay for an individual paint?

[Bluex]

Originally Posted by AlexN

Congrats! Enjoy your ED.

BTW - how did you get a SO 2015 M3? did you have to pay for an individual paint?

Thanks, we had a blast!

No, I did not have to pay for individual paint....this order was put into the system October 2014, prior to the discontinuation. I was fortunate

[bigsid05]

Originally Posted by Bluex

Thanks, we had a blast!

No, I did not have to pay for individual paint....this order was put into the system October 2014, prior to the discontinuation. I was fortunate

October 2014! What a wait!

Congrats on the car - looks awesome, thanks for the pics!

[psuibmw]

Originally Posted by Bluex

Thanks, we had a blast!

No, I did not have to pay for individual paint....this order was put into the system October 2014, prior to the discontinuation. I was fortunate

That is one heck of a wait ... The longest I heard

[AIRPOWER]

Beautiful Car, Love the SO. I was complaining that I had a long wait putting my order in March 3 and it's build week 24 (June 8-12). No more complaining.

Again Congrats!!!!

[JoNaH]

Nice, congrats

[pyceasyas123]

awesome congrats! beautiful color.

[Lynchmob6]

Congrats! Great color choice!

[Bluex]

(Continued)

So we've now left the Welt, and just as we pull outside it begins to lightly rain. It also happens to be about 5pm (delivery was at 3:30.....what an efficiently run operation. Truly) and right smack in the middle of rush hour.

If there was one thing I will have learned from this trip (and I have learned many things), it would be to NOT have your delivery at 3PM or so. I had read this before, but due to our flight arrival time and wanting to see the 11:45 factory tour, I chose to ignore this. It was a mistake. Especially if this is your first time driving in Germany, or Europe.

Don't get me wrong, driving in Germany is fairly intuitive, laws are not that much different (on the face of it) than that of the States. No turn on red (unless indicated)...ect. But it was the first time I had the M, and suddenly it's raining and packed with rush hour traffic. To make matters worse, the GPS takes several minutes before changing it's location....catching the satellites (the car still thought it was in Regensburg), so I was kind of a fish out of water for a few minutes. Our hotel was in old Munich, right by the Marienplatz, around the corner from the Hofbrauhaus, so the trip should have taken roughly 20 minutes. Not today....more like 50 minutes to an hour. Just crawled. I think mileage wise, it's only about 5 or 6 miles tops....but that didn't matter. Just a layer of stress I hadn't been anticipating.

Our hotel, The Platzl, was amazing in almost all respects. The staff were extremely friendly...to the point that they were asking about our delivery, asking what car it was, and actually leaving their desk to go out and look at it. Germans have a funny way where they ask you "What car?" and I say "M3" and they give this little wry smile and say "Oh, that's pretty good. Not bad." But they're smiling as they say it....it's this little sarcastic joke they have, lol. It wasn't just this one, but I had about 4 or 5 Germans say the same thing..."Oh that's not bad" as they're laughing. They gave us Champagne on the house, a little German nut and cheese plate in the room, little bmw miniature cars on the bed that we took back to the kids, and a breakfast that was through the roof good. Oh and did I say they were right around the corner from the Hofbrauhaus? Yeah. I would HIGHLY recommend this hotel.

However, I did say they were amazing in "almost all respects". The one thing that was a huge amount of stress was the parking. It's an underground garage, but being in old munich, it's MUCH smaller than a normal garage. There is a steep decline and a very sharp narrow right hand turn (2 of them) as you descend. After navigating Munich rush hour, having to suddenly deal with this was bad. I don't have cams on my car and i'm still getting accustomed to it's feel and this wasn't good. It was an EASY way to curb your wheels or definitely scrape your brand new paint.

However, the staff knew I was there on an ED (as previously mentioned) and brought 2 people down into the garage to guide me every single step of the way. With a lot of slow and deliberate movement and guidance, they brought me to a safe spot where I was secure for the rest of the night. Even better, staff members were there the following morning at checkout to guide me back out.

Customer service second to none!

Following the stress of driving rush hour and the parking debacle, we went down to the hotel bar for a glass of champagne on the house before heading out to Hofbrauhaus for food and several LARGE beers. We stumbled back to the hotel feeling quite happy

An item of note after 5 days of dining in Germany. Germans LOVE to dine out but their dining culture I found to be different from what we experience in the United States. For example, you seat yourself. If you go into a restaurant expecting there to be a hostess waiting to seat you, you'll be waiting there a LONG time. At most, you can have reservations and then you can go find someone who acts like a host of sorts (but is usually walking around, not standing at the entrance) and he'll point you towards where your reserved table (usually a placard with your name on it) is most likely. Otherwise, if no reservations, you find a table and sit down. They'll most definitely let you know if you can't sit there....lol. I witnessed that more than a few times Additionally, the Germans are very relaxed about their dining, which is almost a bit of a contradiction, as rarely have I found the German people to be very relaxed as a whole. They are prompt, efficient and at times impatient...so their relaxed attitude of dining seems to be a bit at odds with this. Just my perception. But the point is, in the United States people expect that when they are clearly done eating that the waitress will bring the check. Just not the case here. You sit and you sit and you sit some more....they will ask you if you need anything else, but if you say no, you'll simply sit some more You need to actually ASK for the check..."Die Rechnung bitte" works well.....they are very prompt when you ask for it. But you'll sit there for a LONG time if you don't ask.

Additionally, when it comes to language....it goes a long way with some wait staff if you attempt to speak a little German. In the bier gartens, it's actually fairly easy. "zwei bier bitte, dunkel" "danke schoen" "vielen dank" "bitte schoen" and attempting to order by reading in German. I can't speak German, but did take 3 years of it in high school, so when I was at Hofbrauhaus and Augustiner I could communicate in "bar speak" fairly well, and the waiter stopped trying to speak in English (although he could if he needed to) and just helped me with German. He appreciated it. I did notice wait staff sometimes seem slightly put out, at times, with Americans that just spoke english 100% of the time. Like saying "thank you" instead of the easy "Danke". Again, just MY perception.

Oh, and 19% tip is included with the check...but it's good to add a few more Euro if the service was exceptional. We always did.

Day 2: Dachau/Hohenschwangau/Neuschwanstein to be continued tomorrow!

[Deja_Vu]

Christ I love seeing these threads but man it makes the waiting worse. Looking forward to your updates.

[JSCO]

Congrats!! That is a LONG wait

[Bluex]

Originally Posted by AIRPOWER

I was complaining that I had a long wait putting my order in March 3 and it's build week 24 (June 8-12). No more complaining.

Originally Posted by psuibmw

That is one heck of a wait ... The longest I heard

Originally Posted by JSCO

Congrats!! That is a LONG wait

I'd like to make a quick note on this. Yes, definitely a long wait, but.....

The order was put in the system end of October, deposit was put down in December, ALLOCATION was attained in January.

That is why I always make a point to let people know that talk about ordering a car that it's not really "ordered" until you have an allocation and you go into 111 status. We all feel like the first day your CA puts it into the system that we've "ordered" it, but that's just not the case. So while I had my CA put it into the system in October (and yes, i've been waiting that long), it didn't go 111 until late January.

Thanks for all the comments everyone

[Denk]

Very nice, congrats! Three most important german words are, "ein mass bitte"

[Deja_Vu]

Originally Posted by Bluex

So while I had my CA put it into the system in October (and yes, i've been waiting that long), it didn't go 111 until late January.

Wow - why was the wait so long? Because of SO?

[IND-Distribution]

Congrats!

[Bluex]

Originally Posted by Deja_Vu

Wow - why was the wait so long? Because of SO?

No, because my only travel window was May.

[RowanBuds]

Congrats Bluex, car is gorgeous! I just love the Sakhir - between you and vonmayr you're really rubbing in the non-availability of this stunning hue. It just fits the F80 oh so perfectly. Enjoy it safely!

[///bproden]

Congrats man! Love the car! Looks like you also had a great time. I laughed so many times reading your write-up. I remember I felt the same so many times and this just reminded me of all the little things you didn't anticipate for. It's probably the same for all of us ED Americans that go over... All the restaurants and how awkward it always felt. I remember the first few days, we sat and sat and sat. My wife and I would be like "are they gonna bring the check or what should we do?" Hahaha. The driving and how stressful it was a couple of times. I remember getting to a stop light trying to turn right and I was like, crap is this legal? My wife and I were "those" Americans that really didn't know any German. :/ Thank god they are all so nice and welcoming there.

Now's the hard part. It's one thing to wait for ED, but damn, it's hard now waiting for delivery.

Look forward to seeing more of your journey!

[Jockey]

Such a fantastic color