The Toreador Has Docked

[KittyBooBoo]

Originally Posted by AZ-135is

I would guess that would be me. I am in Arizona, so I have at least a day transport once they release the IS's.

I won't bail on this thread until Randy gets his car!

[AZ-135is]

Greg? Anything on yours yet?

[gregthegr8]

Yep, new update! Car arrived at the dealer this afternoon around 3pm, but was too late for her to be ready in time to take tonight. They said it'll be prepped and ready by about 11am, so I am having them install the stainless steel pedals for me during the wait while I'm at work and I will be picking her up around 2pm tomorrow. =)

Good news is the money factor went down even more to 0.00127. Bad news is, for some reason the destination and handling went up $30! I thought that was kinda like adding insult to injury considering how long we've waited.

Got them to throw in the cost of the stainless steel pedals (retail for $159), but I will have to pay their exorbitant labor rate to have them installed. I just want it to be perfect when I take it, so I'll eat that and had them roll it right into my lease, so net result is $2/mo. Considering I had planned on paying for Sirius since I didn't get the premium package, and they just announced the new deal that every BMW now gets Sirius free for a year, I'm still way out ahead since that would have been $10/mo.

So stay tuned. Will have her home tomorrow late afternoon, just in time for the tint appointment I made weeks ago for Saturday morning at 9am.

[AZ-135is]

Very good news!

Please post some pics so I can enjoy someone's IS!

[AZ-135is]

Does your show "At your BMW Dealer" if you look at the BMW website?

[drFUNK]

Originally Posted by gregthegr8

Yep, new update! Car arrived at the dealer this afternoon around 3pm, but was too late for her to be ready in time to take tonight. They said it'll be prepped and ready by about 11am, so I am having them install the stainless steel pedals for me during the wait while I'm at work and I will be picking her up around 2pm tomorrow. =)

Good news is the money factor went down even more to 0.00127. Bad news is, for some reason the destination and handling went up $30! I thought that was kinda like adding insult to injury considering how long we've waited.

Got them to throw in the cost of the stainless steel pedals (retail for $159), but I will have to pay their exorbitant labor rate to have them installed. I just want it to be perfect when I take it, so I'll eat that and had them roll it right into my lease, so net result is $2/mo. Considering I had planned on paying for Sirius since I didn't get the premium package, and they just announced the new deal that every BMW now gets Sirius free for a year, I'm still way out ahead since that would have been $10/mo.

So stay tuned. Will have her home tomorrow late afternoon, just in time for the tint appointment I made weeks ago for Saturday morning at 9am.

[gregthegr8]

Originally Posted by AZ-135is

Does your show "At your BMW Dealer" if you look at the BMW website?

Nope, still finishing touches. The online is usually 2-3 days behind. The 1-800 # is better, without about a 1 day lag but usually doesn't update until the following day. That was still saying "at port awaiting a shipping vessel" earlier today.

[KittyBooBoo]

Originally Posted by AZ-135is

Does your show "At your BMW Dealer" if you look at the BMW website?

Mine doesn't and I picked up on Tuesday.

[KittyBooBoo]

I Can't Wait For My Tint On Monday. Ish Is Hot In Socal This Week!!!

[gregthegr8]

Originally Posted by KittyBooBoo

I Can't Wait For My Tint On Monday. Ish Is Hot In Socal This Week!!!

I hear ya! My goodness, my car is so hot, was sitting there struggling to get the darn Sirius activated (doesn't appear!) and was burning up.

My tint is tomorrow! So at least I beat you on that one Kitty. Uploading pics of my baby in a moment!

[gregthegr8]

So, the long and enduring wait is finally OVER!!!! You can imagine how anxious I was to FINALLY see the car, which was being detailed and was going to take a bit since during the PDI this morning they found the radiator was leaking and had to replace it on my brand new car. =( Better now though than me finding out tomorrow, so I'm somewhat glad they found that.

Without further adieu, here was my first glimpse at her getting all cleaned up, seeing my beloved mineral grey 135is! Not the prettiest way to see her but when I saw that mineral grey from afar...oooh she's a bad ass!



Then a long wait while they got her ready, did all the financing stuff, then couldn't find the guy, which meant he must have been pulling her down and around from the 3rd floor, and sure enough! All cleaned up and parked in the strangest spot, wedged in between various pillars and cars, so hard to take pics of. The pictures do NOT do the color justice...man is it beautiful and a lovely dark gray but also sparkly. =) I was in awe.



Here's her pretty butt:



And after a crazy drive home as I gave up with the person trying to show me stuff since traffic was going to be bad on the 20 mile drive home at rush hour and cause I just wanted to drive the darn thing, I kicked her out and went on my way. But, I'm so used to my Audi's navigation and stuff, I couldn't figure ANYTHING out on the fly with the idrive, could hardly even see the navigation thing, etc., and there was a brush fire 5 miles away so freeway was shutting down, etc.

I then noticed, Sirius Satellite isn't listed in my radio! I know it's wired for it and nobody had a clue about the whole 1 year free thing, but alas (more on that in a minute).

Got her home though safely and here she is tucked away in the garage.





Sadly, I was then on the phone with Sirius for 30 minutes as they say it is equipped and I do get the 12 months free and would send it a signal, so in my running down to the car and grabbing the new car key, I um, hadn't put my house keys on it yet, so locked myself out of my building AND garage! haha. What an ordeal.

Anyways, will have to figure out how to get the Satellite to show up and since I didn't have my garage door opener on me either to get to a better location to receive the signal, I had them set up an automatic signal to be sent tomorrow morning. Hopefully that will work cause I don't want to have to go back to the dealer to have them do some coding or something to unlock it first.

I may take more pictures later tonight, but it's getting a tint first thing in the morning, so I'll probably take pictures after that, cause both in the looks department and also the blaring 96 degree heat I picked her up in, it was downright unbearable. Stay tuned!

I have other thoughts and opinions I may share later, but thought I'd get these pics up and then may go stare at her and wipe down a few spots where they seemingly did a crappy job getting all the polish or wax off as there are smears and smudges in a few spots.

What a car! I feel that I am finally at home and at peace and man does that exhaust sound NICE! Still want my Sirius turned on though. =P

[mb135is]

Woohoo!!!! Congrats!!!!

[gregthegr8]

hahaha, FINALLY!

I now understand what you all mean about how infectious the exhaust sound is. And I'm coming out of a V8 S5 but rarely ever found myself hitting the gas just so I could hear more exhaust sound.

These cars are just perfect.

[AZ-135is]

Congrats Greg! Sorry to hear about the radiator and Sirius issues. But those are easily cured.

That is the color of my 02 330CI!. Loved it for sure.

Still no confirmation to my dealer that mine is even ready to be put on a car carrier. So it looks like it won't be here until sometime next week, I guess.

[gregthegr8]

Ya, I'll get the Sirius thing taken care of. I know it's pre-wired for it as part of the tech package and shows up as prepped for it when I look at one of those vin decoders for my car.

The mineral grey is beauuuutiful, but like so many of the metallic paints, changes so much on the ambient lighting, in some pics you won't be able to tell if it's space gray or mineral grey, and then others it'll look REAL dark. Love it.

I just gotta get used to all the electronics and controls and even the comfort access (which I got for free!) is such a foreign concept to me. I'm taken aback by it. Maybe I'm old school in some ways.

I think you'll be pleasantly surprised Randy and it'll show up when you least expect it.

Kouper should be getting his IS convertible in alpine white tomorrow, so we have a little of everything.

I have a 55 mile drive each way to the tint place I'm taking it to in the morning (didn't remember it being that far!) so I will get a much better sense after tomorrow. I'll have to read the manual at some point, too as it's a lot to digest and some of the things aren't very intuitive to me. Was great when I was about to get on the freeway, not knowing the area at all when someone called and so that came up on the screen replacing my directions and nav screen and they're like, sooo, you get the car? I'm frantically going, yes, now I gotta hang up on you cause you just stole my directions and don't know how to get them back! "What?" they asked. "GOTTA GO!!!!"

I may even tint my windshield a hair, too as I was boiling in the car, even after I got home and went back in it 2 hours later.

Charging up my digital camera and hopefully will have some good quality photos tomorrow.

[simianspeedster]

CONGRATS, Greg! What an ordeal! Mineral Grey really works with the 313s.

Sorry, AZ-135is - I hope your dealer is trying to escalate this issue and keeping you up to date. Did I miss it before, or have they offered you any explanation for this delay?

[AZ-135is]

As of this morning, it is still not released from the port. Dealer just checked again. They say they have no control over this process, so I am at their mercy.

I am going looking at other cars this weekend and might walk away from BMW completely after 12 years of owning one.

Just tired of the lack of communication and delays at this point.

Sorry, just felt like venting!

[mb135is]

Greg - that garage must make for a raucous cold start!!!!!

[Bmwbreed]

Originally Posted by gregthegr8

Ya, I'll get the Sirius thing taken care of. I know it's pre-wired for it as part of the tech package and shows up as prepped for it when I look at one of those vin decoders for my car.

The mineral grey is beauuuutiful, but like so many of the metallic paints, changes so much on the ambient lighting, in some pics you won't be able to tell if it's space gray or mineral grey, and then others it'll look REAL dark. Love it.

I just gotta get used to all the electronics and controls and even the comfort access (which I got for free!) is such a foreign concept to me. I'm taken aback by it. Maybe I'm old school in some ways.

I think you'll be pleasantly surprised Randy and it'll show up when you least expect it.

Kouper should be getting his IS convertible in alpine white tomorrow, so we have a little of everything.

I have a 55 mile drive each way to the tint place I'm taking it to in the morning (didn't remember it being that far!) so I will get a much better sense after tomorrow. I'll have to read the manual at some point, too as it's a lot to digest and some of the things aren't very intuitive to me. Was great when I was about to get on the freeway, not knowing the area at all when someone called and so that came up on the screen replacing my directions and nav screen and they're like, sooo, you get the car? I'm frantically going, yes, now I gotta hang up on you cause you just stole my directions and don't know how to get them back! "What?" they asked. "GOTTA GO!!!!"

I may even tint my windshield a hair, too as I was boiling in the car, even after I got home and went back in it 2 hours later.

Charging up my digital camera and hopefully will have some good quality photos tomorrow.

Congrats buddy. How long was your wait again? Mine was about 5 months.

[simianspeedster]

OK, how funny is this? I was tap tap tapping out a message on my iPad early and I started to type a word starting with the letters t and o, then the spellchecker suggested Toreador as the word!!! We have all been permanently borged by this thread!

[simianspeedster]

Originally Posted by AZ-135is

As of this morning, it is still not released from the port. Dealer just checked again. They say they have no control over this process, so I am at their mercy.

I am going looking at other cars this weekend and might walk away from BMW completely after 12 years of owning one.

Just tired of the lack of communication and delays at this point.

Sorry, just felt like venting!

Wow, I'm sorry to hear that. Even if your dealer is at the mercy of the port, he should be dialing for dollars at the VDC and/or BMW NA to get you some answers. Have they still not provided you with an explanation for the delay? As bad as the delay is, I'd be most pissed about the lack of information flowing your way. Did they screw up? Are they hiding something? Without good info, the mind wanders. Good luck!

[gregthegr8]

So many things to comment on:

First, Randy, stay strong! I think everything will be fixed once your car shows up, which hopefully will be any day. Sadly, I think that if you go looking at other cars, they'll only drive you right back to your IS. I definitely understand the frustration though, but when it finally shows up, almost all will be forgotten. Or you'll be even madder that they took each precious day away from you that you could have been driving it. You may consider complaining or making a ruckus to BMW NA, cause no information is one thing, but when they tell you your car was released to the carrier and arriving, and then the next day tell you it's still sitting there and that was like 8 days ago, that's not right. It should be a 2 minute thing and someone should be able to talk to the VDC directly. My dealer got on the horn with them and had someone go and look into my car. At the least they should do that for you. Hope it shows up and they give you a ton of extra perks or discounts or something.

MB - sadly, I've only had one cold start so far in the garage this morning. I've never been an exhaust person before though, but something about this darn thing is infectious and addictive, and I'm darting through traffic and hitting holes in the freeway not cause I'm in a hurry or want to really weave through traffic, but just to hear that exhaust go some more! When they brought it into the garage to tint it, man you could hear that echoing, too. And that sound is unmistakable, like some mother lion hearing her cubs voice or something. When I hear it turn on, I like jump up and look around. I was probably 50-100 feet away when I heard it go on and am like, OH! they're done!

And BMWBreed - my wait was exactly 3 months to the day, but depends how you do the math. I ended up having to place an order at a second dealer 2 weeks after the first attempt to place an order when the first dealer dragged their feet and apparently didn't do anything for 5 days and then said, oh, now we don't have any allotments anymore and even suggested a week later i place an order with another dealer or two to secure a spot. Fun!