Hey guys, I thought some of you might want to hear about my tour of the VDC. The great guys at BMW car club (NY group) arranged a tour of the VDC in NJ on Saturday.

The event had over 270 people broken into about 8-9 different groups. The first part was a quick talk by the club guys and various different BMW employees. We also got a cool video showing Euro delivery of BMW's at the BMW Welt. They also had a raffle; I won the BMW DVD of all the BMW films. My brother won a magnet.

After the talk we broken into groups and got a tour of the place, sorry but no pictures were allowed. I was really amazed at what it takes to get the car ready for delivery to the dealers. First step is washing, next is installation of floor maps, stickers, etc. The last step if requires is to re-flash the cars should some change be required.

They service about 500-600 cars per day including our Mini. I saw a couple Clubman and many different cooper and cooper S getting ready to be sent to dealers.

During the tour they stated that if a repair can be completed in less than 5 minutes they will do it and not need to notify the customer, but should something take longer they fully disclose this to the dealer and customer. The VDC has a complete body shop to fix an repairs required. The cool thing is during Euro Delivery of BMW should the car be damaged it is repaired free of charge. I think that is a good deal for those owners.

One sad thing during the tour, they still had cars in the lot that had been damaged during the storm on the Courage ship. About 250+ BMW were lost when they hit a storm which broke free the cars. For about 2 days they acted like ping pongs in the bottom of the hull. I saw at least 10 new M3 that were in various shapes of twisted metal, if not for the rims, it would have been hard to know what the car was. Each day they take about 10 cars and crush them while the insurance company, customs officials and BMW official watch. Nothing related to the cars can be saved or used or given away.

BMW was nice enough to bring in some cars for us to see. They pretty much had everything from the NY auto show. I was able to sit in the JCW mini cars and the Mini Challenge car, very nice!! They also had M3, M5, M6, 335d, X6 and Alphina B7 for us to sit in and play with

After the tour we had a cool German lunch.

Overall it was really cool event and I have to thanks all the guys that arranged this and BMW for letting us see the inside workings of the VDC

 

Whoa, I wish we could get NAM trip together to do that. . .(hint).

 

wait wait. did you say 335d? did they give any more information of about the 335d? like when they might officially announce or sell the car and msrp?

 

I too was on the tour-excellent day! I wish one of the MINI groups in the tri-state area could get something like this together. The site of those smashed BMWs (damaged on the Courage) brought tears to my eyes .

 

mellowmcs.

No they did not give us any more info than what is already known from other press releases.

Gabe who does motoringfile, has recently started bimmerfile, which is updated constantly had some information earlier in the month:

http://www.bimmerfile.com/2008/04/01...anced-diesels/

 

great thanks for the info

 

$50K for a new BMW and your brother won a magnet!