pharding

1. I have no idea how that happened. Apparently the car was not properly prepped at the Euro Delivery Center. Having the radio unplugged is inexplicable. The delivery center is swamped right now. Possibly they are understaffed with technicians.

2. BMW cares about the customer delivery experience. The I-Pod cable procedure is absurd. They need to provide the cable at the delivery center or just mail it to you in advance. Who has time to run around in Munich looking for a BMW dealer with a part for an expensive option that you paid for?

3. It is just matter of time before my wife rams my car into something by mistake.

4. The radio is an expensive disappointment, but I have not tried the CD's yet. The problem is that the prior generation of Logic 7 was amazing in its rich audio quality. This sounds cheap in comparison. The sound starts to break up at a much lower threshold when the volume is turned up moderately. Undoubtedly they have a major problem with the supplier in my opinion.

5. The folks at Freiman were very gracious, apologetic, and hospitable. I chose not to comment to them on the wood issue and the panel gaps because 4 hours was a long time to be there and I did not want to spend the day there instead of being on vacation.

My wife commented on the wood upon immediately getting in the car. They certainly have quality controls with the wood and supplier problems with that as well. As an architect I am quite familiar with wood veneers. Bear in mind the wood panels have wood that is microns thick. Some variance in wood is normal and cannot be avoided. Every quality product with wood in fact it faces that. What is commonly done to address this is that dark, out of character wood veneer is sorted out. They are not doing that or not doing that well. It is also common to match wood components together so that they fall into a family range so that they look harnmonious together. I.e a car might have wood from the dark range, another car might have wood from the medium range, etc. I own a 1901 Frank Lloyd Wright house that is being restored. It has poplar wood trim throughout the house so I am extremely familiar with poplar. Poplar is an economical, soft hardwood with a broad range of light and dark. It runs both light and dark, more so than most woods. The dark with cool color range wood on a BMW needs to be either sorted out or just used in the same car. Apparently the wood used on the center console is where BMW or the supplier is using the darker wood. This is the wrong place to use it because it does not get much light and it reflects the anthracite headliner. The angled piece on the dash picks up a lot of sunlight so that it is going to exacberate the problem if that wood is a t the lighter range of the scale. The wood trim on the door is vertical in orientation so it does not get much direct sunlight. Undoubtedly another quality control issue is that the wood is probably sorted and inspected in cool fluorescent light as opposed to a color accurate light. In any event BMW appears to have signicant quality control issues with wood trim on an expensive high quality German automobile. My car was a fully loaded $78,000 car which should not suffer from the build issues that I experienced. When I looked at other BMW's in the dealer's showroom when I got the I-pod cable, those cars did not suffer from the crummy wood match that I got stuck with. BMW is a stand up company so I believe that they will take care of my problems, but I dread the time that it will take to document, debate, and ultimately fix what is quality control problem on their end.

Carbon Black will be extremely high maintenace, but it is beautiful. It is very popular in Germany. I probably should have gotten space grey. At the delivery center they were flooded with white M3's that are being delivered to auto journalists. According to delivery center staff BMW is promoting white as the new classic color for a BMW. The new M3's with carbon fiber roof panels are unbelievably cool.

We spent a wonderful day in Munich yesterday after we picked up the car. Germany is beautiful and the German people that we encounter are absolutely wonderful. I especially like Munich and beer gardens. We are off to Salzburg for two days, then on to Bertchesgaden, the Deutsche Alpenstrass, Garmisch, castle tours, and then back to Munich to meet a friend for a beer.

For what its worth, after having flown all the major airlines into Europe, Lufthansa is by far the best. Everything is exceedingly well run, the aircraft are spotless, the stewardesses and stewards are excellent (not bitter frumpy United Airlines staff that are bummed out about having their pensions taken away). Surprisingly you actually get a full blown high quality meal with tableware and dishes, free beer, wine, and liquor before and after your meal. Plus they actually fly on time.

All things considered, even with the minor annoyances with the car, European Delivery is a great experience. It helps you to appreciate the car and its wonderful German heritage. At 135 mph on the autobahn a BMW runs so flawlessly that it feels like you are going 65 mph in the US. The is rock solid and super stable at extremely high speeds. German people have long standing traditions of caring a lot about craftsmanship and technology in addition to being exceedingly polite and gracious hosts. Germany is exceedingly clean and safe. As an architect I never cease to be amazed by the exceptionally high quality of German craftsmanship and quality in their buildings. This just isn't in high end hotels. Whether it is a building or concrete Jersy barriers along a highway the craftsmanship is utterly superb. Traditions of excellence run deep in Germany and are intrinsic to German culture. There are lots of wonderful places to visit in Germany and neighboring countries that also contribute to fantastic European Delivery experience. This my fourth European Delivery experience. My wife and I enjoy these trips immensely. If someone hasn't tried this, I highly recommend it. It is fun and it really helps you to understand why a BMW is the way that it is.

Please excuse any spelling errors as I am in a hurry and the spell checker is not installed on this computer.

JSpira

Lieber Paul

Danke for the thoughtful reply, esp. while you are travelling.

I am now wondering about carbon black. The platinum grey is quite nice (that is the color of the press car I am driving right now). I?ve heard BMW is trying to push white; this will be tricky in Germany where white is for panel vans and derided as k?hlschrankwei?.

Did you get to see anything of the Welt?

I didn?t know about your house - but I am a great admirer of your house?s architect. That will have to be a separate discussion.

Enjoy your travels.

Rudy

Paul,

Sorry to read about the issues you faced during your delivery. You are correct that there are some minor details that need to be ironed out (like the iPod cable, etc.) Overall though, I'm sure these things will end up being small blips on the radar when you weigh them against the long-term satisfaction that this car is sure to bring you.

I wanted to echo your comments on the wood match issue -- my car has dark poplar and the long dash piece is much lighter than the wood in the rest of the car. What's funny is that I kept going back and forth between the light and dark poplar when ordering since I felt that either would look good on my beige interior. I thought I ended up deciding on the light poplar but my dealer thought I decided on the dark. (Not sure exactly how it slipped through the cracks but I can see how since I changed my mind a few times.) To me, it's not worth it to make a big issue about my light vs. dark issue but I do want to stay tuned to what BMW does, if anything, to attempt to remedy this seemingly common issue with the mismatched dark poplar.

The way the transmission lever works is one of those things that I believe is the way of the future and is something that will become commonplace with many cars as they begin to shift (pun intended) from the manual linkage transmissions to the electronic ones. I think pretty much every electronic shift transmission I've seen (BMW & Mercedes) works that way. If you think about it, once you get used to it, it makes more sense and is safer since you don't have to pass through reverse to get to drive. I see where it can be a little scary at first but I do think it's something that you (and your wife) will adjust to fairly easily.

Enjoy the rest of your vacation!

(and yes, I'm another Frank Llyod Wright fan -- Fallingwater is in my back yard!)

EBMCS03

Yes possible improvement but still lacks in quality compared to pre-LCI
Please see this thread.

http://forums.e60.net/index.php?s=&sho...st&p=449272

JSpira

I think that the transmission lever could still be more intuitive. In fact, since it's electronic, it could be programmed to do anything the design engineer wishes.

Case in point: my 550i was picked up and replaced with a 535i by the press fleet folks. The driver, leaving with the 550i, almost went into another car (forward) when he should have pressed P for park.

I'm glad I am getting a 6-speed transmission on my car.

BMWSTL

Will we get a review/comparison of the 550 and 535 from you?

Lou

JSpira

Ja, although I just realized I have a 535xi not a 535i. I asked for a 535i specifically.

That notwithstanding, in terms of normal driving (nothing too spirited), the 550 motor feels much more natural than the 535 motor. I also like the sound of the 550 better.

pharding

The configuration of the shifter movement is a residual concept from mechanical automatic transmissions. The paddle shifters have a certain functional logic to them that makes their configuation, push/pull, logical and intuitive. After driving the car for two days, which I enjoy immensely, the shifter is still counter-intuitive. I admire BMW's commitment to innovation. With the new uncharted designs comes an occassional item that merits refinement with time. This is one in my opinion. Think back to the manual shifting of BMW automatic transmissions. My 2001 5 er required a shift up to advance the gear. In 2004 it was reversed and is much more intuitive.

We had a slight sprinkle in Munich 6 hours after I picked up the car. The rain carried dirt which gave my new car dirty spots all over it. It is now a day and a half after I picked it up and the car looks extremely dirty. Carbon black looks great when freshly washed. However it is super high maintence incomparison to my previous silver 545.

I toured and photographed the new BMW Welt, the new BMW Euro Delivery Center from outside the construction fence. It is an extraordinary building. I can hardly wait to see the interior spaces which promise to be an extremely dynamic environment to take delivery of a new Bimmer. The building is crawling with construction workers and equipment. I am skeptical that the building will be complete by October 21. By building a large, expensive landmark building like that BMW is expressing its long term commitment to European Delivery. The present delivery building at Freiman will continue operation to serve the bulk of German deliveries not routed through local dealerships.

On our way to Salzburg, the navigation system picked up a warning of a traffic delay. It told me to expect a delay of 16 minutes. It graphically showed where the delay was on the map. It indicated whether it was east or west bound. It gave me an option to tell it to identify a detour. I did so and took the detour. It worked fantastic.

The car drives and handles great. As well as my 04 545 sport drove, the 08 550 sport drives and handles noticably better which I am surprised to say. The controls are more refined and more tactile. The sport transmission is rather amazing. Even in standard, non-sport mode, it shifts in a wonderful sharp manner. In sport mode it shifts even better. When you downshift it stays in the downshifted gear like it should, except it does not want to stay in first gear. The only thing about that I question is that after using the manual shifter without activity after multiple minutes it moves into automatic mode. I wish that each driver could set that delay to his or her liking. Active steering has now been perfected.

The car is great and it has exceeded my high expectations. Our trip has been great so far. My wife is a happy camper so all is fine.

The Parrot

i would personal think with out driving it that the paddles are a useful way round. my logic you pull towards you to go up. acceleration and geforce are pushing you back so that would be the easier way . and then when slowing down on hard brakig pushing you forward so tapping it forward. kinda logical for me.

Ray Hull

I test drove a new 550 (not Sport) at the Breast Cancer event in June. The ONE THING that I praised BMW for was the removal of that damned diagonal wood-covered grab handle on the E60 driver's door (still present on passenger side). From Day One, that hard surface has banged my knee continually, as I am tall and my knee rests right against it. And beyond that, being in a design profession, surely you realize that the 04 grab handle was too far forward for good leverage.

By reinstalling the (perhaps shallow) grip in the arm rest, they have moved the leverage point back to where it is convenient, and incidentally, was located on my 98 540, which I think overall had a much more comfortable interior.

Wasn't able to determine if they narrowed the dead pedal on the left: on the 04 it is too wide (or overall well is too narrow to accommodate wide tires) and impedes my foot travel on the clutch--a dangerous and annoying design fault that needs attention--but doesn't show up on the vast majority of their automatic transmissions cars.

Otherwise, I agree with you on refinements; after four iterations, it's about time. Have fun on your journey.
Ray