WOW! What an exciting - and quick day! I had a BLAST, but it really was a bit of a whirlwind. Photos uploading right now, so they will be posted ASAP (although the hotel WiFi sucks, so I may have to only post a few for now). But I'll share some thoughts while awaiting file uploads...
First, about doing ED (then we'll get to the car):
- ANYONE who is a BMW enthusiast should do at least one ED. Hell, you don't even have to be an enthusiast - if you're just looking to buy a new BMW, by all means do an ED!
- The Welt and the Premium Lounge is all really cool!
- The food in the Premium Lounge is pretty dang good!
- The factory tour was awesome! Especially so since I got to seem them making the cars just like mine. It actually blows my mind that anyone is able to produce a high quality automobile when you witness all that's involved and think about how quickly they go through the process - she said it takes right at 40 hours to produce a 3er. 7er's take the longest at ~52 hours.
- The gift shop in the Welt isn't all that great, IMHO
- I wasn't all that impressed with the Museum either - but then again I'm not much of a musuem type - and I had my brand new baby across the street waiting for me to give it some driving love :-)
Now the car (in no particular order - just scatter-shooting - and I'm sure I'll think of lots more):
- LOVE IT!!!
- Mineral Grey is gorgeous!!! All that time I spent wondering if it was the right choice was in vain!
- HUD is *very* cool - love how you can scroll through playlist/album/whatever and choose songs on it.
- My first car with iDrive - it'll take a little time to learn to be efficient with it
- Auto Start/Stop - it's not as smooth as I'd expected. The car shudders a little when it shuts off and lunges a little when it starts back up. I still think it's a good idea and I think I'll get used to it pretty quickly, but not as refined as I'd hoped.
- Seats, trim, leather, etc are all as expected - nicely done.
- Key fob is not as huge as it looks in some of the photos :-)
- Comfort Access opening of the trunk is actually quite simple - you just have to pull your foot all the way back and step away from the car a step so there's no chance of it still 'seeing' you there
- Camera package on car is cool!
- I managed to keep it under the recommended 4,500 RPM's all but once while driving on the A8 today
- Can't quite say the same for staying under 100mph as recommended for break-in. It just wants to go! I hit 140 twice. :-) Incredible how quickly it'll shoot from 75-100mph without even pushing it at all!
- HK premium sound system is very nice! I cranked it up with rock, classical, country, etc and they all sounded great - and that was with only a simple trebble/bass adjustment - I'll deal with the full equilizer later.
- I know there are LOTS of other things I'm not saying now - will update as I think of others
I think that's it for now. I'll start sharing pics as soon as they're uploaded.