PCD on 16 March 2012

16 March 2012 will be the re-delivery from a European Delivery in January 2012!

The plan is to drop my companion back at the airport by around 5:00 pm Friday, then drive to Asheville for the night.

Early Saturday morning, hit the Tail of the Dragon. If it really only takes 20 - 30 minutes to do, I might make a U-turn and do it again...then again, and head to Nashville, Memphis, Little Rock, Dallas, then finally Houston. Total should be about 1,300 miles or so.


European Delivery Thread:
http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=594318

Congrats! Look forward to seeing you on March 16th.

Hey i was wondering what day you dropped your car in Europe and where. Also what date did they tell you had a March 16 date.

Thanks
Steve

If you have the time, you might want to do part of the Blue Ridge Parkway coming out of Asheville headed towards the Tail of the Dragon. It is not a direct way there, definitely the scenic route, but it is fun too.

Jim

Originally Posted by stevec32

Hey i was wondering what day you dropped your car in Europe and where. Also what date did they tell you had a March 16 date.

Thanks
Steve

Hello.

Sure! The entire history, down to the specific dates, are here:

http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=594318

Originally Posted by JimD1

If you have the time, you might want to do part of the Blue Ridge Parkway coming out of Asheville headed towards the Tail of the Dragon. It is not a direct way there, definitely the scenic route, but it is fun too.

Jim

Thanks. I will take a look at the maps and see how that fits in!

16 March 2012:

PCD complete!

It was frakking awesome!

Drove up to Asheville tonight; Tail of the Dragon tomorrow morning.

(weather permitting....it rained super heavy tonight on the drive up north.)


Just a couple of pictures from the Performance Center....


(P.S. I might have fanagled the final 1 cm of space left to write on the last page of the Bimmerfest PCD book.)

Congratulations!

Looks like they washed your car for you. I was under the impression that for people doing a PCD after an ED, they pretty much just had the car sitting outside as it was dropped off in Europe, without the usual prep that is done for non-ED customers. At least, that is what happened to me when I picked up my M3 in July 2009. Still had Italian bugs splattered on the front bumper...

-David

They made it super clean / showroom ready!

Originally Posted by dbknightx

Congratulations!

Looks like they washed your car for you. I was under the impression that for people doing a PCD after an ED, they pretty much just had the car sitting outside as it was dropped off in Europe, without the usual prep that is done for non-ED customers. At least, that is what happened to me when I picked up my M3 in July 2009. Still had Italian bugs splattered on the front bumper...

-David

I noticed you have done two Euro Deliveries , and then PCD Pickups . Are you doing that with your new Z4 ? We are planing to do a PCD in late May , early June. Any tips , since you have done two already. I was surprised to hear that BMW did not clean up your car from the time you left it in Italy. Have fun with Your New Z4 !!!

Originally Posted by vmcvey

16 March 2012:

PCD complete!

It was frakking awesome!

Drove up to Asheville tonight; Tail of the Dragon tomorrow morning.

(weather permitting....it rained super heavy tonight on the drive up north.)


Just a couple of pictures from the Performance Center....


(P.S. I might have fanagled the final 1 cm of space left to write on the last page of the Bimmerfest PCD book.)

Nice !!!!!!!! Your M3 looks Awesome !!!!!! Have a safe and fun drive back to Houston. My wife and I are planning a PCD experience in late May early June. However we will be going to San Diego. What were the Highlights of your PCD Pickup? Nice pictures of your M3 at the PCD !!!

@SD330i. Give me a couple of days to not be traveling, and I'll do a write-up on the specifics. There were several very positive aspects of the PCD worth writing about!

Since 3:00 pm Friday, I've put in 560 miles and stopped about 3/5 the distance to Dallas for now. By the time I get to Houston it will be ready for the 3,000 mile service, haha.

[QUOTE=vmcvey;6709356]@SD330i. Give me a couple of days to not be traveling, and I'll do a write-up on the specifics. There were several very positive aspects of the PCD worth writing about!

Since 3:00 pm Friday, I've put in 560 miles and stopped about 3/5 the distance to Dallas for now. By the time I get to Houston it will be ready for the 3,000 mile service, haha.[/QUOTEHa

Have a fabulous time on your way back to Houston.! We look forward to reading about your time in South Carolina , and the various activities at the PCD. Safe Motoring.

Originally Posted by vmcvey

They made it super clean / showroom ready!

That is awesome. Hope that is standard policy now, since I'll be back at the PCD in late June / early July.

Originally Posted by SD330i

I noticed you have done two Euro Deliveries , and then PCD Pickups . Are you doing that with your new Z4 ? We are planing to do a PCD in late May , early June. Any tips , since you have done two already. I was surprised to hear that BMW did not clean up your car from the time you left it in Italy. Have fun with Your New Z4 !!!

I absolutely am doing ED + PCD. In my opinion, the only way to buy a new car!

As for them not cleaning my car, I'm not sure if that is standard policy or not. Perhaps it has to do with how busy they are around the time you do the delivery. I know that on my first ED + PCD, I got a full delivery experience (including fully detailed car) and it was FANTASTIC! I thought I read that at some point they switched to a "just hand you the keys" delivery for ED customers since they had already gotten the full "Welt" experience.

We still got the complimentary room for the night, plus the morning full of activities (including getting to stomp on somebody else's M3) so it was absolutely still worth it. They just had our car parked in front of the delivery center after the morning activities and just handed us the keys.

-David

Originally Posted by dbknightx

That is awesome. Hope that is standard policy now, since I'll be back at the PCD in late June / early July.


I absolutely am doing ED + PCD. In my opinion, the only way to buy a new car!

As for them not cleaning my car, I'm not sure if that is standard policy or not. Perhaps it has to do with how busy they are around the time you do the delivery. I know that on my first ED + PCD, I got a full delivery experience (including fully detailed car) and it was FANTASTIC! I thought I read that at some point they switched to a "just hand you the keys" delivery for ED customers since they had already gotten the full "Welt" experience.

We still got the complimentary room for the night, plus the morning full of activities (including getting to stomp on somebody else's M3) so it was absolutely still worth it. They just had our car parked in front of the delivery center after the morning activities and just handed us the keys.

-David

Okay, here's the run-down on the Performance Centre Delivery Experience.


FUN ! ! ! ! !

I flew from Houston with a friend. She's listened to me talk about the M3 for almost six months...and since the European Delivery portion, she's mostly tuned out my voice when we saw another BMW. She had pretty much no opinion on performance vehicles....

...until PCD.

Thursday night arrived at GSP. Placed a telephone call to the Marriott and they said to look for a bronze X5 in about ten minutes. Warren picked us up within eight minutes, and whisked us to the hotel. He was knowledgeable about the next day and shared a bit of info.

Dinner at the hotel was quite good. I ordered a 6 oz. Filet Mignon; my friend ordered the "Low-Country Shrimp and Grits."

"What's that," you may ask? Jalapeno-cheddar grits, asparagus, tasso ham, & spicy red pepper aioli. I still don't know what that is. But my steak was great!

On Friday morning we had the complimentary breakfast buffet; and then stood around at the front door, all full of anticipation, and met three other couples going to the Performance Centre. We all hopped on a Marriott shuttle and in just about ten minutes we were let off at the front of the place of fun.

Our vehicles were NOT on display yet. Crafty staff, they are... hehe

We had about a twenty minute safety briefing and discussion, and introduction to our two primary driving instructors. (I am usually one of those people that are flawless at remembering names -- but I had a total FAIL here and am really embarrassed about it. I think we had Ray and ....?.... as our instructors.

Then we went outside in the back and found the PC vehicles. We had a DCT M3 4-door, and I hopped inside. One couple had a Z4; there was an X5, and a 5-something. The people with the Z4 had a bit of a rough start -- she hadn't driven anything other than a manual transmission, and didn't know how to get the automatic Z4 going. After the instructor spent a moment, we zipped out after him.

They hang two-way radios in the door-panel which lets us listen to the instructors. It works quite well!

We went out to the ABS course and it was a little bit wet in that one stretch of pavement; otherwise we had approximately 73 degree weather, party cloudy, no breeze. PERFECT.

The instructor shows you heavy braking distances, and then we go drive.

Each person takes four runs at a path of cones that are straight for the first fifty feet, and then begin a gradual left-arc curve. The first speed was 30 mph (I think) and the M3 stopped in like 'nothing' distance. We watched the Z4, 5xx, and X5 go farther. Then I did 40 mph. Then 50. Then 55mph. In all cases, the M3 stopped prior to the curve, so I did not get to test the "you can/should steer when under heavy ABS braking." We watched the Z4 slide off into the dirt. And the 5-something did so also. That was because they were looking to the side of the road and not looking where they want to go (into the left curve). That was a technique the instructors repeated often -- put your eyes where you want the vehicle to go. And "9" and "3" positions. I do that anyhow, so it was easy.

My friend took the wheel, and she had excellent stoppage, too, on her four ABS runs.

Then we went to the road course. Yeahhhhhh!

We followed the instructor for two laps.

There's a slalom set of about five cones, where the idea is to enter and maintain and exit at a consistent speed. Then apex turns, high corners, and a few elevation changes.

I kept catching up to the other vehicles, and twice pulled into the "pit" to let them get almost back around to me...and then caught up to them again. I did about ten laps...? The first three or four laps I was getting the hang of the track -- and then the last five I was mashing it. This was a total complete rockin' blast of fun. Wooo hooo.

Then we had to pit; and switched drivers again. My friend took over. (She's not a lightweight when it comes to cars -- but turns aren't her thing. She learned how to drive on a drag strip because her family built and raced cars for thirty years....but in a straight line...mostly.) She caught up to the other drivers a couple of times and got stuck behind them. It was a tiny bit disappointing because she didn't get as good a chance to kick-it into higher speeds as I did due to timing of the other drivers's vehicles. But she still had a blast.

Then it's off to the skid pad. It's a big concrete donut-shapped circle, with water sprinkler towers in the middle, and lighting poles, and about a forty-foot wide pavement; maybe fifty yards in diameter.

We hopped in a different car, a 5-something I guess, and the instructor sat in the right front. He turned off the DSC and DTC, and then get the left front tire on the yellow painted line. Then to mash the accelerator and let the car slide out. Which it did, circles, spinning, and wheeeeee! I did it again. Then we activated the DSC and I was able to keep the vehicle mostly on a semi-circle around the yellow line. Lots of noise of the systems keeping the vehicle under control!

My friend did the same maneuvers.

And it was there, I think, that she got a realization that BMW's are not just cars. The safety features (in vehicle control, and then in crash protection) and technology began to win over her opinions of these highly-engineered vehicles.

Then we hopped in another car with the instructor for a "hot lap." O M G ! We went sliding, smoking tires, skidding, fish-tailing, whooo hooooo. I could do that all day long.

Finally, in a demonstration of skill, he did the skid-pad donut loop without DSC but keeping the left wheel on the center yellow line, then switching to the outside loop, and then back again. Cool.

And then we were done with the track.

Then we met James. We split up into two groups, and James gave each of the four of us an X5 to drive. We followed him down a hill, and then to the highway; about 1 mile to the X5 factory.

During the drive out, I was looking intently at the Heads Up Display when my friend, behind me, honked and pointed. My car was sitting in the front of the Performance Centre!!

Well...we pulled up on a side sidewalk and he said we could come back with our cars there later to take photographs. Then he led us inside the Museum and Shoppe, and we met Dagmar. Dagmar was our tour guide. Because it was fairly close to lunch-time in the plant, we went into rapid-walk mode so that we could view a number of key parts of the factory tour prior to lunch. I guess it was about 45 minutes in length to get through 4/5 of the tour, then for the last piece we took about fifteen minutes relaxed because the factory lunch break had begun. Dagmar answered all of our questions, she had good insights into the factory operations....it was a well-done tour! Now because I have worked in consulting in industry previously, I've been in about 100+ factories. But I'm always fascinated by the manufacturing process! My friend thoroughly enjoyed it because she had never been in a factory -- and this was all 100% new stuff.

We followed James back to the Performance Centre and we had complimentary lunch from the cafeteria. There were lots of other people there, taking other scheduled courses (I'm not sure which, but I think someone mentioned the Car Control course??).

Then we met James again out back, and we took the X5's onto the off-road course. The four of us followed-the-leader (James) over a buried log road, a deep-water ditch, then a steep ascent, then a turn-tight-on-the-mountain trek, and then a test of the Hill Descent Control thing, which works amazingly great.

Then we did a climb a hill slowly, and get the right-front and left-rear tires on the trail, but the other two tires floating-in-air-wobbly-thing. That was great. Finally, we did a left-thirty-degree bank driving, and a right thirty-degree bank driving deal. And finished at the back of the Performance Centre.

Then we met Willie. She was as nice in-person as others have posted about her. She led me to my M3 Cabriolet!

It had been super-cleaned and was beautiful ! ! ! !

(except for a fresh layer of yellow pollen, haha).

She did a brief walk-through of what had been done (took about five minutes) and then asked if I had questions.

I noticed it now had a full tank of gasoline, too!

We dropped the top, took a few pictures, and then drove back to the factory. There we got onto the official sidewalk, but I wanted pictures in the front of the place, too... so, I drove it on the sidewalk to the fountain/pool area. I guess it was okay, because nobody came out with a pitchfork to run us off. We snapped about six-thousand photographs.

We were done around 1:45pm, earlier than planned, so we drove around area towns and sites with the top-down. My friend had to be back at the airport by about 3:30pm; I dropped her off at GSP. (She had a meeting the next day and had to be back in Houston).

Then I drove east for an hour to meet a friend for dinner (from Charlotte).

There's more about the trip home through the Tail of the Dragon, which I'll write about later. (rain, closed-roads, detours, and general chaos).

I've done the European Delivery and the Performance Centre Delivery.

Wow. What a wonderful experience this has been!

Just fantastic!

What a great post! I'm scheduled for ED on August 9th and was debating about also doing PCD. After reading your post, I think I've made up my mind. Only issue for me will be the added time for delivery to PCD as opposed to having car delivered to my dealer which would be quicker.

Originally Posted by jeffnin

What a great post! I'm scheduled for ED on August 9th and was debating about also doing PCD. After reading your post, I think I've made up my mind. Only issue for me will be the added time for delivery to PCD as opposed to having car delivered to my dealer which would be quicker.

Hello. I think, at most, the PCD added two weeks to my overall time. It was really short duration from the arrive-at-port to PCD. And it was TOTALLY worth it!

Pics from the Performance Centre Delivery


1: Me and the car
2: Chrysty and the car
3: Willie and the car
4: Chrysty in the X5


- Vaughn

Originally Posted by vmcvey

Hello. I think, at most, the PCD added two weeks to my overall time. It was really short duration from the arrive-at-port to PCD. And it was TOTALLY worth it!

Based on the limited amount I've learned during this process, I think a PCD delivery vs. dealer delivery should be viewed as more like a _minimum_ of 2 weeks extra-- not a maximum, on Performance Center re-delivery of a Euro Delivery car. Especially as the weather gets better and more people pick up cars there (ED and otherwise) and also depending on flexibility of day-of-week for pickup as well as other factors.

Great post! Thanks for sharring!

Sorry I didn't get to meet you. My daughter had a dance competition in Gatlinburg, TN that night and I left at lunch time to drive up with the family. We probably shared some of the same experiences that day. Sat on I-26 for 2+ hours (13 car pile up) before finaly getting to an exit to get off. Then decided to take back roads all the way. We ran into construction, road closures, heavy rain downpours and mad farmer brown on a tractor with a plow going 20mph and taking up 2/3rds of a 2 lane road. He was knocking down mailboxes / signs along the way and was forcing oncoming traffic into the grass. That 3 hour drive turned into a 6 hour adventure .

Enjoy your BMW M3

Originally Posted by I-Won-Today

Great post! Thanks for sharring!

Sorry I didn't get to meet you. My daughter had a dance competition in Gatlinburg, TN that night and I left at lunch time to drive up with the family. We probably shared some of the same experiences that day. Sat on I-26 for 2+ hours (13 car pile up) before finaly getting to an exit to get off. Then decided to take back roads all the way. We ran into construction, road closures, heavy rain downpours and mad farmer brown on a tractor with a plow going 20mph and taking up 2/3rds of a 2 lane road. He was knocking down mailboxes / signs along the way and was forcing oncoming traffic into the grass. That 3 hour drive turned into a 6 hour adventure .

Enjoy your BMW M3

Hello!

Willie walked us over to visit with you -- but she said you were on your way to cheer-on your daughter (and maybe demonstrate some real dance moves...I think that's what they said, haha)

The team at the Performance Centre was fantastic! I'll be back for the two-day ///M School before long!