What's up with "Processing Center"? - The Unofficial BMW M5 Messageboard (m5board.com)

Roton · 16th August 2001, 19:34

My '01 M5 arrived at the New Jersey BMW Processing Center last Wednesday, Aug 8th. My dealer told me on Monday that it was supposed to be shipped up to him over last weekend, but that for whatever reason it wasn't released to the carrier last week, so it hasn't made it up there yet. BMW Customer Assistance tells me that as of today, it still hasn't been released from the Center. I asked them why it would take so long and they said that they had to charge the battery and clear customs among other things.
Charge the battery?

So what exactly does the Processing Center have to do when the car arrives there. Any experience out there on how long it usually takes for them to release the car to the transport carrier?

Thanks,
Doug

JFB · 16th August 2001, 20:04

Roton

Yeah, I'm in the same VPC Limbo as you.

I don't know why it takes over a week to clear customs and the inspection process.

My dealer (in IL) told me not to expect delivery until next Friday the 24th.

What's even wierder is that now the Owner's Circle has now reverted to showing the car's status as "On Order".

I set up the car on the website using the production number. When I tried to update the listing with the VIN, there does not seem to be any way to delete the production number -- and the site won't accept the VIN I was assigned (maybe because it duplicates the production number?).

I just sent a "Priority E-mail" to BMW Customer Service to find out what's up.

Jim

GNALUZU · 17th August 2001, 01:34

Our M5 was at the California VPC for about 2 weeks. I think after it gets through beign checked they have to wait for a truck to ship it on. Also, they have to wait for the truck to be full. As much as it hurts to hear, they are not going to send out a truck with just one car on it. Boy did it stink having to wait while the car was just sitting at the VPC.

JFB · 17th August 2001, 03:01

Thanks for commiserating GNALUZU. It's pretty frustrating to have the car so close to delivery, and hear that with nothing being done to the car it is just sitting there on a lot in New Jersey.

The basic process you described is consistent with what my dealer told me. I assume, however, that they are not waiting for a truck load of M5s. It cannot possibly take that long for a truck load of BMWs to be assembled for shipment to central Illinois.

The upside is that BMW completed production and shipped the car a bit earlier than I originally expected, so the timeline may come out even with my original expectations when all is said and done.

Jim

JFB · 20th August 2001, 03:56

Doug

Did the VPC ship your car to the dealer yet? I spoke to my dealer on Saturday. He said that they still have no word from BMW NA about when the car will ship. He told me that they were shipped a load of cars from the VPC after mine arrived there on August 8, but mine was not among the cars shipped.

The funny thing is that it sounds to me like the folks at the dealership are as excited about having an M5 on the lot as I am to take delivery! I guess this dealership does not get a lot of allocation.

The dealer said he is going to call the BMW NA district manager on Monday to find out what is holding up the car. I am still keeping my fingers crossed that I will be picking up the car on Friday 8/24.

Oh, yeah. BMW NA fixed my Owner's Circle problem. Seems as if there was a problem with the VIN. The one that the dealer gave me originally had one digit off from the one supplied by BMW. BMW NA updated the Owner's Circle with the corrected VIN and replaced the production number with the VIN.

Jim

Roton · 20th August 2001, 20:58

Jim,

The Owner's Circle website information was screwed up for at least a couple of days last week. It showed mine with just a production number and waiting to be built. It's back to normal, but no matter, they're at least a couple of days behind on updating it anyway. At this point in our game, that makes it of little relavence. I have yet to get my sales guy on the phone this morning as he was with another customer when I called 15 minutes ago, but last Monday, he indicated that my car appears to have met with the same fate that yours did in that it missed the shipment that went out the end of the week before last. While I'm sure that that was indeed the case at that time, at least in principle, how many hundreds of transports do you think went out of there last week? My dealer knows little, if anything more than I do about this aspect of the car. When it comes to knowing about the fundamentals of the car itself, they really ought to visit this board; they might learn something. I really do know more about the car than they do. Too bad about this as BMW has been right on the money, time wise, from production slot through shipping up until this time. I suspect that once it hit US soil, all bets were off. We should keep in touch about this as we find out more information.

Thanks,
Doug