Ok, now that I finally have some time to put together a write-up, I just realized how much of a task it is to actually put together a write-up!! Nonetheless, I told myself that I would do the best I can to put one together in the hopes that someone out there finds it useful or just enjoys reading write-ups. I know they helped me bide the time as I waited for my baby. Maybe it will help some of you guys! Without further ado - my write-up:
Backstory
My story starts a little over a year ago (January 2010) when my wife's 1998 Toyota Avalon was rear-ended and totalled. We were in a good place financially and I always wanted an M3 ever since I learned to drive stick on my buddy's '99 Estoril Blue E36 M3.
So I threw the idea out to my wife and she was intrigued! She wanted to test drive the car; and I, of course, was happy to acquiesce her request. Unfortunately, we were living in Kansas City at the time; and there wasn't a M3 to be found available for test drive. The winter last year was pretty bad in KC (as it was in many places), so that didn't help in our quest to find one to test-drive.
Fast forward 2 months to March and I took an offer for a new job. This offer took us from being in a good place financially to a great place financially. However, this job would require me to travel a significant amount of the time (M-Th every week). Because of my travelling, we questioned whether it made sense for us to add another car to our garage at the time. In addition, my sister-in-law was getting married in June in Springfield, MO (where my wife's family lives) and we decided that we would be moving to Atlanta after the wedding. All these factors resulted in us deciding to hold off on pulling the trigger for the time being.
My wife quit her job in April (moving us from being in a great place financially to being a very good place financially) because she wanted to spend a couple of months in Springfield, MO with her family before we moved to Atlanta, and her sister (the one getting married in June) moved to Chicago after the wedding. So we gave up our apartment in KC, moved all of our non-essential items to our home in Atlanta, and pseudo moved in with my in-laws. It was also at this time, that the wife and I agreed that we wouldn't by a new car until we moved to Atlanta.
As the wedding neared, we actually found a M3 at the local dealership to test drive. So finally, 4 days before the wedding, we made an appointment to go test drive the M. It was a MR E93:
We also test drove a F10 535i right before the M. Great car by the way. I was actually scared that my wife was going to prefer the smooth ride of the 5er over the not-as-smooth ride of the M. Our CA was this younger, rather attractive blonde with her tits half-hanging out (not that I was complaining) that wasn't paying nearly as much attention to my wife as she was to me. However, she had no qualms about us opening up the M so we were more than happy to oblige.
We got back from the TD and surprisingly my wife was all about the M!!!!
Of course, we weren't looking for a E93. As we pulled around to the back of the dealership, I spotted a SG E92 ZCP which I pointed out to the CA:
She was surprised to see it as well as she thought the E93 was the only M they had. So my wife and I walked up to the the SG E92 and we were in love!! Not only was the car a beauty, the price was as well! The MSRP on it was like 68k!!! While the CA went in to inquire about the vehicle, my wife and I discussed the fact that this car (and the price) were spot on in regards to what we were wanting. We discussed that, while we initially decided to wait till we moved to Atlanta, this was just a really great deal to pass up. Unfortunately, not only was it too good of a deal to pass up, it was actually too good a deal to be true. Turns out it was a SOLD car. And the great pricing? You guessed it - Military Sales. However, as I truly believe: Everything happens for a reason. The reason for us being that we really had not spent enough time in thinking about what we truly wanted.
Fast forward to August and we have finally settled in our home in Atlanta. The wife was looking for a new job and I joined M3post.com. As I poured over the forums, I learned more than I could ever imagine! After a month or so, I was ready to get serious about pulling the trigger. The wife and I decided that we were interested in doing an ED. I reached out to the great resources available on here in terms of pricing and ordering. As the schedule for an ED started revealing itself to us, I realized that we would be doing ED during the winter months!! This led us to decide that we wanted to wait a little bit longer so we could actually enjoy the car while in Europe. So we decided to wait until late January, early Feb to order.
Fast forward to December, I happened to see that there's a $1500 holiday credit being offered and I found out that the price of the car was increasing by $500 in January. While I wasn't planning to save money by doing ED, I was planning on using the price difference towards the vacation. This was my justification for waiting so damn long to get the car. However, now that the difference would be cut by $2k, I was questioning whether I really wanted to wait that long to get the car. It was also at this time that the wife started a new job which put us back in a great place financially. After much deliberation, we decided that we wanted the car sooner rather than later. Could it be that we'd finally be pulling the trigger?!?!? Yes. We were finally pulling the trigger...
Ordering
I'm going to be brutally honest here: I had a very hard time deciding who to order the car with. It was crystal clear that it would be either with Ryan/Jimmy with Steve Thomas BMW or David Aviles with EuroCarsOnline/Northwest BMW. In the end I decided to go with David Aviles. David was phenomenal to work with and I have no complaints. The entire process was done over the phone/email/mail and was smooth as butter. That being said, I also believe 200% that you cannot go wrong with Ryan/Jimmy. The bottom line is this - we are in a fantastic situation in that we have 2 outstanding CAs offering us first class service and pricing. I feel for anyone that has to make the choice between these two operations. Talk about choosing perfection over perfection.
Back to ordering, while we initially were looking at an E92, the E90 started to grow on us a lot. I wasn't a big fan of the rear of the E92. The bigger, wider stance of the E90 boot was what hooked me. We also decided that it's more practical for us as we're looking to start a family in the next year or so. Now that we got the body style out of the way, what about color? All I can say is choosing a color was made exponentially difficult by the fact that I have a wife that was almost as enthusiastic about getting the M as I was!
Of course, I also realize how amazing she is for being that way, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
I am a fan of bold. The wife, not so much. She wanted SG with black interior and I wanted MR with black interior. Knowing how much I love red, she put out the first counteroffer: SG with FR interior. I accepted! Done and done! As the days went on though, I saw more pics of SG and my mind waivered. It's a great color, but the "BOLDNESS" in me was screaming at the top of its lungs saying, "NOT BOLD ENOUGH!!". To add to it, I really wanted extended leather but the FR extended wasn't doing it for me. Just felt like too much red. It was at this time that my eyes started wandering over to the Individual Color Thread. There were 2 colors that really popped to me here: Atlantis Blue and Monte Carlo Blue. Naturally I wanted to get wifey buy-in. She wasn't sold on Atlantis. Truth be told, neither was I but it was just an option. Monte Carlo, however, definitely had us intrigued. But Blue?? Where the hell did that come from? Now that we opened our eyes to a color that we weren't even considering before, we revisited non-Individual blues: Interlagos and Le Mans. Right off the bat, we agreed that Le Mans was more up our alley than Interlagos. So I set off to find more LMB pics. During this search, I started to get confused about the difference between MCB and LMB. There are many pictures where they look nearly identical (more on this later). Mad
to AMPowerJ's photo gallery:
2009 LMB M3
I think it was this photo gallery that confirmed LMB for us. It does a great job of showing off the amazingly varying shades of LMB.
Now that we had the exterior locked in, the interior was much easier. We already knew we wanted the CF leather trim. With that being said, the black leather was just too much black for us. Silver Novillo was definitely something we were considering. I found some great pics of Silver Novillo Extended on the forums that really sealed the deal for us. The contrast between the extended leather and black trim was fantabulous. We were set.
The Wait
Agonizing. Horrendous. Torture. Need I say more? Not much else to say about the wait. It sucks. The only thing that made it
somewhat bearable was pouring over the forums and obsessively tracking the status of the car (800 # lady - what a love/hate relationship we have had). I scoured for any multimedia I could find with regards to the M. I also met a great group of guys on here that were tracking to take delivery around the same time as I was. Four of us (TxFeat Fan, Arter, Miami M3, and myself) were taking Performance Center Delivery the same week. On top of that, 3 of the 4 (Arter, Miami M3, and myself) were taking delivery on the same day! On top of that, Arter was picking up a MCB E92!! What a perfect chance to compare MCB and LMB side-by-side!! Not much else to say about the wait. The only good thing that happened during the wait was that my wife got a new job and now, with God's grace, we are in a FANTASTIC place financially. Other than that, the wait was not fun and my heart goes out to all that have to endure it. All I can say is that it is definitely worth it.
During the wait for delivery, I did happen to come across a couple of E90s during my daily driving. I couldn't help but capture a few pics of them in action:
Delivery
91 days. 91 days from order to delivery. The magic date for me was March 18th, 2011. Initially, my delivery date was on 3/16 (a Wednesday) but I requested it pushed back since I wanted to make a weekend with the wife out of it.
Being that I was Charlotte for work during the week, I did a one-way car rental from Atlanta to GSP that week while setting up the same for my wife on Thursday. The Marriott is pretty nice and having Platinum status with them gave us access to their Concierge Lounge. My wife reached the hotel before I did. Here are pics of the last car I drove (my rental) before taking delivery, the hotel room, and a little set up my wife had waiting for me (She's amazing!
):
Friday morning, I was up and ready to go! Got ready, grabbed some breakfast downstairs at the hotel and jumped on the shuttle to the Performance Center. At this point, I knew that Arter and Miami M3 were on the shuttle as well but wasn't sure who they were. I had my hunches about who they were (turns out I was right about Miami M3). As they were doing roll call with last names on the shuttle, they called out Arter. That obviously told me who Arter was. I went ahead and introduced myself to him.
As we arrived to the PCD, they greeted us in the front lobby where Miami M3's Jet Black E92 was sitting pretty:
That's Arter in the foreground with the green striped shirt:
Miami M3's whip:
They then took us into the conference room and gave us a quick breakdown of the day and a synopsis of BMW's ABS braking system:
That's Miami M3 with his girl in the background:
After the synopsis, we all headed out back to get in our cars (as it's been said before - "NYC -- NOT YOUR CAR!!!"):
Miami M3
The only pic with Miami M3 and Arter in the same pic!!
Donnie (Isley), being the awesome man that he is, found it fitting to take the 3 M3 deliveries to the far side of the track for the braking exercise. After that, he tooks us to a separate track to do our hot lap exercises. I believe Arter ate a cone or two!! What a fantastic way to get acquainted with your car and find out what it's capable of!!!!!!
Any doubts the wife had about the M3 were absolutely and forever dispelled after this (or may be it was after the hot lap with Donnie - of which I have a fantastic video that I need to upload and post!!)
After this awesomeness, we jumped in X5s and headed over to the factory for the tour:
I've heard people say that the factory tour is boring; but I really think it depends on the person. I'll say this, if I had taken a tour like this before going to college, I may have seriously considered IE as my major. The sheer amount and complexity of logistics involved in the factory was amazing to me. Suffice to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the tour.
After the tour, we headed back to the PCD and went straight into the X5 off-road course. This course definitely eradicated my perception of the X5 as an overpriced SUV. In fact, the course instructor was actually in a new X3!! The Xs (dunno about the 6) definitely have my attention!!
After the off-road course, we grabbed some lunch. My wife and I had the pleasure of eating lunch with Sehr Donnie Isley. That was truly a treat. Just a great guy all around. I highly recommend talking to him as much as possible. After lunch, he looked at me and said, you guys wanna go for spin? Yes. Ohhh yesssss.
My video of the hot lap with Donnie will be inserted here. I actually went on 2 hot laps with him. Guys, our cars are the ISH!!
After getting our lunch blended in our stomach proper like, it was time for delivery! They walked us through the gift shop, though I was more interested in seeing where my delivery was going to take place (one of the bays or the front lobby). They had us set up in the front lobby!
I turned the corner in the gift shop and I was hit with love at first sight!
:
The following are pics of the delivery and then a few comparo shots of MCB and LMB. Here's what I have decided about LMB vs MCB: What LMB looks like in direct sunlight is what MCB looks like
ALL the time. It is at these times where the difference between the 2 colors is nominal. The fact that LMB takes on a whole variety of shades under different lighting is what I love the most about LMB. It's a different color from every angle! Enough talking - on to the pics:
After heading out from the PCD, I told the wifey that we were going to go drive up through the mountains and find a hotel to stay in Asheville. Actually, I had booked a night at a fantastic B&B called The Lodge at Lake Lure. If you end up doing PCD, I highly recommend stopping by this B&B. Fanastic service and old world rustic feel:
Fantastic bistro we ate at called Medina's:
First fill up!!
Finally, we went up to the Tail of the Dragon to make a few runs before heading home. Another must do if you're in the area and can spare the time!! A great way to modulate your RPMs, gears, and speed on the way to a successful break-in!!
The M turns its back on the Tree of Shame!!
Well, that about sums it up. I hope I did good by the Gods of Write Ups. If not, I guess I'll try again when I do my ED on my F10 M5!!!
Thanks for stopping by and taking a look. Thanks also for all the support in getting me here and for the support I'm sure you all will provide in the future!
Yogi