Special Order or buy off the dealer lot

I've noticed a few post discussing buying off the lot or ordering a build to order 650. I thought I would start a thread to discuss the merits and considerations of buying off the lot or special ordering. My first consideration has been time. Instant gratification with compromises. In my case we are a small enough market we only see one 650i at the dealer at any one time. So really no choice. I chose patience and getting a car configured the way I want. Hence my bias.

Ordering a car is an exercise in patience. It just takes a long time to get it. Having ordered my fourth BMW and third 650i I have an idea of range of time it takes at key stages. Once you place your order with the dealer the dealer has to use up a production slot for your car or borrow one from another dealer. As an example in my case I ordered my soon to be 2012 on 2/21/12. The build slot was a month later at the end of March. Production started March 24 and was complete on 4/2/12. Since I live in Colorado all BMWs are shipped to California which is around 25-35 days on a boat from Bremerhaven. If you're on the East Coast the boat schedule is about 10 days less.

Since I lease my 2010 650i and the lease is up at the end of May I am just fine with the current schedule which puts the 2012 in my hands from Mid-May to the first week of June, depending on when it gets on a boat. I really like the 2010 I've been driving for almost three years so its just not a big deal.

The schedule looks like this:

• Within a few days of placing your order with the dealer he will place an order on BMW filling up one of his allocated slots.
• The build will be assigned a day to enter the production que. From the production que start to auto being shipped to the port is a range of 29 to 50 days. The range is wide because in some cases the German government inspects these cars. My 2010 was delayed 3 weeks for that reason.
• The delivery to the US West Coast is roughly 30 days give or take a few. It really depends how fast the boat can travel. I think you can safely subtract 10 days less to the East coast
• You need to then add a week waiting for a boat and an additional week for transport to your dealer.
• Your dealer also needs a few days to get the car ready for you. They have to clean it, take the spring blocks out, lower the tires pressure, and a whole host of other clean ups for you to receive a near pristine car.
• Total time from order placement to delivery 64 to 91 days.