mehall2

Fellow Enthusiasts,

As you can see in my sig, I am planning on taking delivery of my 550 at the Performance Center in South Carolina. I have taken a driving school/get-a-way weekend there, so I am familar with the facility. What I need is to know how much this option costs and what all is actually part of it.

I was told by the instructor at the school, is you get to spend 2-3 hours on the Performance Center Track with an instructor in a car "Like" the one you ordered. i.e. a 550i. You also take delivery with a BMW Specialist who goes through car very thoroughly with you, then you get to drive it home.

Anyone have experience with this?

Regards,

Michael

my530i

Ask Rudy.

mrbelk

I did PCD on my 330 back in 2000. It was a great experience. If I ever tire of doing European Delivery, this is how I will take delivery of a BMW. You get 2 hours or so on the track, a nice thoroough delivery in a private delivery bay, and a tour through the plant. I've read that they're rearranging the plant layout, so plant tours might not be part of the program for now. Along the way, you get a nice lunch in the cafeteria.

As to your cost, you have to pay to get to Greenvill/Spartanburg airport and you have to pay for gas and hotel charges to get home. Everything else is covered: transportation from the airport to the hotel; hotel and dinner in the hotel restaurant (which is pretty nice) the night before; breakfast in the hotel the day of.

If you've already done driving school weekends there, then you know how nice the facility is.

You will have a terrific time.

-MrB

bmuu

Peformance Center Delivery was great. I took delivery of my first e60 April 14, 2004. I would have done it the second time around if I wasn't in a hurry to get my vehicle. Dealer delivery was terrible. IMO, every dealer should attempt to deliver a vehicle like the PDC. There is no cost associated with PDC.

mehall2

Thanks Mr. B and Kevin, being that both of ya'll are in Atlanta, PCD was a no brainer option.

I have friends in Canton and will be driving through Atlanta going home to Dallas, after I pick up my car.

Thanks again for the information.

Rudy

I'll echo what the others have said (and wait for CRRobert to chime in...)

Performance Center delivery is something I'd do again in a heartbeat. The overall experience was great. The hotel accomodations were much better than expected (the hotel had just been renovated) and the included meals were very high quality.

The factory tour was still interesting to me and worthwhile (even though I toured the M-B plant in Sindelfingen, Germany as well as the GM plant in Lordstown, OH in the past.)

The private delivery was thorough -- certainly more so than it would have been at the dealership but that said, I still managed to teach a few things to the delivery specialist!

The on-track part was fun (any on-track activity is fun, isn't it?) but was geared toward someone who hasn't had any track time. Amazingly, they had an SMG 545i waiting for me to use at the track (My car was from the first "batch" of SMG's built so I never expected them to have one at the Performance Center.) There wasn't much time to hone my SMG skills during the short time we were on the track but it was fun playing with active steering in the slalom and it was fun on the skidpad. Finally, the instructor took us on some hot laps and some spins in an E39 M5 just to get our adrenaline up a bit.

We took a quick pass through the Zentrum museum before driving home. One additional benefit to driving home was that about half of my break-in was done in one day!

How much does it cost? That's the best part -- assuming you can get yourself down there, it's free!

You can see some pictures of the delivery booth and the exterior of the Performance Center in the Gallery by clicking here. I didn't post any pics of the track time -- I only took a couple and they're really not much to look at. (I also have some pics of the dozen or so Z8's and Alpina Z8's parked in the parking lot.)

I recommend that anyone and everyone take advantage of this little known secret!