X5 Special Orders Suspended

So I've heard people have had success in the past special ordering certain items on their X5/X6, and I was attempting to have shadowline roof rails special ordered on a X5 50i M-Sport (aluminum are standard). My CA responded that the plant is suspending special requests on X's, and Adrian alluded to the same in another thread. Any idea why they would do this? I know some plant upgrades are coming in the next month or so, but I don't see how these would affect simple things like different roof rails.

Try another CA at another dealer.

Chuck

Originally Posted by ChuckGr

Try another CA at another dealer.

Chuck

Chuck, while I appreciate the response, I tend to believe my CA and Adrian are not lying about this...my question is why would the factory put a hold on special requests.

to wrap up the end of the model year as they flush out all x5s and get ready to convert to 2013s?

Inventory is the game, I see advertisements on TV about BMW's $4500 diesel credits all last week. the last refresh in 2010 did not shut things down for more then a few days so I really don't know what this story is about. Thinking the 2013 has some changes but not enough to idle the plant, maybe combined with plant upgrades for maybe a couple of weeks. I'm not on their need to know list so just babbling here, lol.

Originally Posted by ard

to wrap up the end of the model year as they flush out all x5s and get ready to convert to 2013s?

Maybe for the 35d, but we are ordering a 2013 50i which they have been producing for several months...

Originally Posted by georgejm

Inventory is the game, I see advertisements on TV about BMW's $4500 diesel credits all last week. the last refresh in 2010 did not shut things down for more then a few days so I really don't know what this story is about. Thinking the 2013 has some changes but not enough to idle the plant, maybe combined with plant upgrades for maybe a couple of weeks. I'm not on their need to know list so just babbling here, lol.

I'm now starting to wonder if we'll even see a 35D for MY2013. The F15 should arrive in the 2H of 2013, so they could just wait and relaunch it then. I'm absolutely blabbering at this point, but the 3 series diesel is in limbo in the US currently, so it's not implausible that they could go without a X5 diesel for several months too.

Originally Posted by TN_3

Maybe for the 35d, but we are ordering a 2013 50i which they have been producing for several months...

You need to change your point of view from YOUR CAR, which you view is singular and unique and model centric, to a "BMW Plant" which is ONE thing and ONE process. There may be things going on there that are well beyond our simplistic "its a diesel" or 'its a 50' concepts....

Dunno, just saying...

Having ordered a car from a production allocation (X5 50i with ZMP and ZMX) just over a month ago, it was not my experience that such substitutions are available "ordinarily" or even extraordinarily? I dont think the ordering system supports it unless the individual item has a separate order code, if the option cannot be expressed in the ordering system the JIT manufacturing system is unlikely to be able to handle it and then it would have to be "individual" ... YMMV

each option has a separate code. in Europe configuration is based mostly on individual options and not packages