My Z4 Order History & Timeline

[skier219]

I ordered a Z4 on October 21, 2010 -- an sDrive30i model with 6-spd manual, M-sport Ivory-White package, heated seats, and iPod/USB. MSRP was $53625. The same day, I received a production order number from my salesman, and began tracking the car.

As many people find out, it takes 24-36 hours for the vehicle information and production number to sync up on the BMW website, but shortly the car was there:



Here are some milestones along the way. All info was relayed by the 1-800 number, which is probably ~24 hours behind realtime progress.

October 28: scheduled for production
November 2: in production, estimated completion of November 8
November 5: body shop
November 6: paint shop
November 9: complete, awaiting release to carrier
November 10: in transit to port of exit
November 11: at port waiting for vessel

At that point, I began looking at ships leaving Bremerhaven with a stop in Baltimore, and there were a lot of upcoming voyages listed on the Wallenius-Wilhelmsen website. Turns out that the car was loaded on the Talisman and departed Germany on November 13, showing up in the W-W tracking system a couple days later (lookup via VIN). The ship was scheduled to arrive in Baltimore on November 28, with stops in Zebrugge Belgium, Le Havre France, and Southampton England (interestingly, a second Le Havre stop was was worked in mid-cruise).

While enroute, I used web cams, marinetraffic.com, and sailwx.info to follow the ship (good way to distract from the agony of waiting, and rather fascinating). Here are a few events during the trip:

Talisman's route from Bremerhaven into Zeebrugge, Belgium as shown on marinetraffic.com


Talisman entering port of Zeebrugge on November 15


Enroute to Le Havre, France


Talisman entering port of Le Havre on November 18


Leaving Le Havre a couple days later, headed into the sunset for Baltimore!




Route across the Atlantic shown on sailwx.info (typical speed was 18-20 kts)


And finally, heading up the Chesapeake Bay on marinetraffic.com



The Talisman indeed arrived in Baltimore on November 28, and W-W tracking showed that the car cleared customs and was released on the 29th. Here's the full tracking history from W-W:



On November 30, the BMW website updated to show that the Z4 was at the prep center, which means delivery was likely 4-10 days out.



On the morning of December 2, I got word from my salesman that my Z4 was in the hands of the trucking company. Later that afternoon, it arrived at the dealership in Newport News, VA (about 200 miles from the port of Baltimore). Delivery was scheduled for December 3, and here she is!





The car is beautiful. I have never been fond of white cars, and I never in a million years thought I'd order a white interior. I went shopping for the Z4 thinking about a deep sea blue on saddle car, space gray on red, or silver on black (all "comfortable" color combinations I have owned on other cars) but when I saw this white/ivory combination on the lot back in October, it knocked my socks off. I find that the graceful lines of the car really come out in Alpine White, and the Ivory/Anthracite interior looks like a million bucks. This color combo is quite a departure for me, but really makes the car feel like something special and not just another sports car in a long line of sports cars that have graced my mid-life garage. Hopefully I will be able to keep it clean!

Some summary stats:

Time from order to start of production ~ 11 days
Time in production ~ 7 days
Time from production finish to arrival at port of export ~ 2 days
Time in transit on shipping vessel ~ 15 days
Time from port of entry to arrival at dealer ~ 3 days
Total time from order to delivery = exactly 6 weeks (42 days)

6 weeks was a lot quicker than I expected, and the wait really wasn't too painful at all (time seems to fly now that I am older). Tracking was a great way to pass the time, since you can see bits of progress every so often.

Some useful links:

W-W website
marinetraffic.com
sailwx.info

[Memphis1]

they must've pulled a car almost done in production and gotten your options on it and shipped it. i remember my E90 was nowhere in the states similarly built and not in production so it took three months because it was ordered from scratch.

[BMWZ4]

Skier219,

Like you, I'm not terribly fond of white cars, BUT, yours looks awesome. Congratulations!! And just in time for the weekend you lucky stiff (mine's packed away for the winter unfortunately!)

Very nice ride.
Dave
p.s. thanks for the 'guided tour' of your order & shipping. Technology is a wonderful thing.

[Silver-Bolt]

Congrats. Sounds like you need a job that takes you away from the net. lol. White was our first choice but the price we got on a red one was too good to pass up. Next one will be white.

[tranquility]

Nice write up. It is amazing, w/ technology these days. Thx for the pix. Luckily the last one wasn't like this: LOL j/k Enjoy your white on white!


PS: It's cool to see that our cars are that much lower than a 3-series.

[Wraith.]

That is quite fast.. I dropped off my car in Munich 8+ weeks ago and I'm still waiting for re-delivery.

[skier219]

The technology is amazing -- a few months ago I marveled while watching a friend pilot a boat through the Panama Canal on webcam, and now I get to track a car built and delivered from Europe. If this sort of technology was available when I was a kid, it would have blown my mind.

[HerrK]

Originally Posted by Wraith.

That is quite fast.. I dropped off my car in Munich 8+ weeks ago and I'm still waiting for re-delivery.

Has your car made it to PH yet?

[Wraith.]

Yes it's been at the PC for the last two weeks. Ostensibly they are repairing some of souvenirs I picked up along those insane Italian roads. Frustrating part is my CA can't seem to provide me with an ETA.

[rmorin49]

OP: I agree with your choice of color.