Achtung: Fire Orange M3 Performance Center Delivery Experience

[MSPORTWORLD]

     Featured on BIMMERPOST.com

After waiting about a month and a half after my Fire Orange Euro Delivery Experience I finally got the word that I would be picking up my car at the Performance Center in Greenville, South Carolina on 11 June 2012. I jumped at the opportunity to share this experience with my father because I have not yet been able to convince him to join the BMW family.



And so off we go…We both fly in on the red-eye flight Saturday night and arrive at Greenville Spartanburg Airport around 10AM the next morning we were first greeted at the airport by a small BMW display.



We were then picked up by the very kind hotel staff from the Marriott in a BMW 5GT that BMW provides the Marriott just to pick up PCD customers.
One of the best hidden secrets to the Marriott is the restaurant. Quite the spread that morning for Sunday brunch and it was absolutely delicious. Although, this meal was not covered by BMW it was well worth it.







Dinner was covered by BMW which had a set menu just for PCD customers. We enjoyed the meal while chatting with other PCD customers on what they would be picking up the next day and what BMWs they had or currently have in their stables.









Bright and early the next day we are off to the Performance Center. After a bit of classroom time with the instructors we were off in a car that was the closest representation of the model that was purchased by the customer. In my case they gave me Silverstone E90 M3 with DCT/ZPP/ZCP/Premium Sound. Not exactly the same as the stripper that I purchased but it’ll do.
We then took the car through a few exercises mostly designed to highlight performance characteristics that make BMW superior to other makes: ABS braking, auto-x sized track lapping, DSC skid-pad demo, X5 off-road course.
I did my best to capture each element of the day in this short video, I hope it’s informative. It was quite a wet day indeed but the rain might have made it even more fun, my father and I both had a blast and the day was designed for two guests with plenty of time for driver changes. Of course the best part of the performance demos is the E60 M5 hot-lap delivered by one of the schools many instructors:



The day would not be complete w/o a tour of the Spartanburg Plant and museum which. Unfortunately for proprietary reasons BMW does not allow photography of their plant but I was quite impressed when I compared it to their Munich operation. I was also quite appreciative of how many American suppliers they used and truly believe if you want something American made buy an X5/X6/X3 because they are more American made than most of the Big 3 that’s for sure and all on non-union labor with only a 3% employee turnover rate. What a great company.















Finally the big moment was here, re-delivery. This is actually a rather un-climactic moment for those that have already taken delivery once before they just left my car outside ready for me to drive away because I already had all the features explained to me before. Needless to say the car attracted quite a bit of attention from the other delivery guests that day.
After taking delivery my father and I headed to the museum/plant again to snap some more photos and take a quick tour before heading on our way down to Texas.

I also wanted to thank BMW of Mobile Alabama for their hospitality and free quart of TWS 10W-60, I had noticed that the VPC had under-filled the oil after the engine had been running for 15-20 minutes. At least this confirms that they actually did the run-in service and didn’t just say they did.
And now let the modding begin!

[the_stranger]

Beautiful color! Congrats and enjoy in good health!

[sin911]

People, please stop posting cars in Fire Orange! You're giving me bad ideas...

Beautiful car! Congrats

[THE TECH]

Congrats.

[Sean@PSI]

Great Color!!

[GOLFFRR]

Awesome! Im sure your pops really enjoyed the whole trip! Can't wait to see what you end up modding it with

[positiveions]

that is awesome buddy. Congrats once again.
Those plates, looks so delicious.

[Ryan@IND]

Congrats! Thanks for sharing

[img]

Awesome,Congrats !

[MSPORTWORLD]

Originally Posted by GOLFFRR

Awesome! Im sure your pops really enjoyed the whole trip! Can't wait to see what you end up modding it with

O yea and as usual special thanks goes out to Golffrr, Ryan and Francesca from Steve Thomas BMW for making this all possible.

[LarThaL]

C'mon people admit it.....the best thing about fire orange is that you don't need to change the bumper reflectors.

[GOLFFRR]

Originally Posted by hkyplaynazn

O yea and as usual special thanks goes out to Golffrr, Ryan and Francesca from Steve Thomas BMW for making this all possible.

Enjoy buddy and be safe out there. As always we all at steve thomas bmw really appreciate your business and if you ever need anything else just let me know

[Kwando]

Great trip. Great Colour. Hate those rims lol

[MSPORTWORLD]

Originally Posted by LarThaL

C'mon people admit it.....the best thing about fire orange is that you don't need to change the bumper reflectors.

Damn you caught me....Although I'll probably get some painted to match from IND in the near future.

[Terraforce1]

Congrats FO is the tits

[Nate@IND]

The food I mean congrats on the new M

[Alex07M3]

Nice car and specially, nice wheels , looks a lot better then usual 18s!

[RyanM42]

Great write up and excellent color.. Definitely envious of it..

[E92_SID]

Next you have to take your dad to MFest in Vegas. My dad doesnt really like Vegas or bimmers but he sure loves MFest and has gone with me for the past 3 years!

[GTM_Challenge]

Great looking car! I know it wont stay stock stripper car for long....

[ATX78703]

nice man. love the comments about the domestic build content. maybe ill just buy 2 x's next.....

[Stronie]

Really great color, would love to see it in person.

Is there any metallic to it? or just a deep solid orange?