Originally Posted by Go_Fast_545' date='Dec 6 2004, 02:49 AM

Three months of waiting and I finally took delivery of my 545i on Friday late afternoon, just in time for a weekend of rain in San Diego!? Nonetheless I still got a couple hundred miles in, although I couldn't make the SoCal meet today.

By analogy, when somebody tells you how great a movie is, you're sometimes disappointed because your expectations are too high.? Applied to the delivery of my car, I worried that I might be let down because of all the glowing reports I've read here from other owners.

But...no chance of that.? What an unbelievable ride.? For those of you still waiting and having to live vicariously through others, the wait is painful, but the ride is simply awesome.? I don't know otherwise how to describe it.? It feels like no other car I've driven.? Acceleration is effortless, handling is flawless.? I suppose my thoughts are a bit unrefined at this point, and I can probably articulate better after a month or so, but at this point I couldn't be happier.

I also think iDrive is awesome.? Combined with the included voice recognition technology (Nav) which also works flawlessly, car management couldn't be simpler.

I even had a great surprise from my dealer on Friday evening.? I was planning to purchase the car with a loan from my credit union at a great rate of 3.9% fixed.? But BMW apparently has a new leasing program with a .00165 money factor which is identical to the loan rate from my credit union.? So I decided to lease instead.? For some reason this lease program doesn't seem to show up on the Financial Services section of the BMW NA website.

Anyway, I'm glad to finally see for myself what others have been raving about....