eekelly

Here's an update on my ED experience, very pleasant overall. Audi does a nice job with deliveries. I ordered the A3 on May 6. It was made the week of June 27, and my delivery date was set for Friday, August 26.


An Audi driver picked us up in an A8 at our Munich hotel at 3 pm on August 25 and delivered us to the Hotel Rappensberger in Ingolstadt. Hotel was fine except for no air conditioning. It was quite warm and the provided fan was not the same as AC. We enjoyed walking around the old town in the evening after picking up a walking tour map from the tourist office. Ate a delicious supper at Gasthaus Daniel. Another driver appeared on Friday morning at 9:55 and we arrived at Audi Forum shortly after 10. Miriam took care of us that day and we checked in, toured the museum, took the two hour very interesting factory tour complete with detailed descriptions of the high quality paint jobs. Following, we had lunch in the wonderful cafeteria and arrived upstairs for our 2 pm delivery time. Our darling red A3 sat on the floor below as Miriam gave us the distressing news that there were paint flaws. Yikes! The passenger door had two places where the paint did not cover; you could see the primer. Miriam said she had never known of this happening before. We were given three choices. 1) Take the car and have the door repainted in the US. 2) Audi would immediately repaint the door and after four hours, we could take the car. 3) We could leave the car to be repainted and take a loaner A7 overnight and pick up the A3 on Saturday before noon. As our travel plans kept us in Bavaria til Monday, I proposed that we take option 3) but return on Monday, instead of Sat, to retrieve our car, and they agreed. So, after an hour of instruction on the bells and whistles of the A7, we set off for Andechs, 80 miles away. We drove the luxurious A7 all weekend and returned on Monday around noon (did not have to fill up tank before returning). A3 looked beautiful! We got a thorough run-through of the car before lunching at the Audi cafeteria again and then set off for the rest of our itinerary. The date of our delivery and onset of insurance remained August 26/25 but this was not a problem for us. All in all, everything worked out okay; we just lost a few hours of sightseeing.

With the A3 we were lent a Garmin Nuvi 550 which worked okay although we were quite spoiled by the A7 navigation system. It was terrific.

We dropped the car at Amsterdam on September 5, and I regret to say that a week later, the shipping website does not show that it has left Amsterdam. Drop off took 1.5 hours and a taxi was summoned to take us to the Central Station in Amsterdam. Fare was about 35 euros. Per a previous post about moving delivery date, I brought my salesman a box of Belgian chocolates.

TIME89

First of - congratulation on your A7/A3 ED. You probably first who pick up ED A7 (even for 3 days)

Second

eekelly

Here it is! Isn't it cute? Photo taken at the Amsterdam shipping office.
I'm disappointed that it seems to still be sitting in Amsterdam, 10 days after drop off.

TIME89

eekelly

Finally, my cute car is paddling across the pond. I left it at Amsterdam docks on September 5. After 2 weeks, it was trucked to Port Emden, Germany. Departed on a ship yesterday, September 28, 23 days after I dropped it off. Projected arrival date at Port of Houston, October 17. It's fun to track it on www.marinetraffic.com.

http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/dat...a=A&level0=200

eekelly

Finally have my car as of Saturday, October 22. And it's a great car, even if I don't yet understand all the buttons, especially the "Mode" on the steering wheel which says "button not used." Huh?

Here is the timeline of my purchasing process, all 5 1/2 months.

May 6 - ordered 2012 A3
June 27 week - production of car
July 29 - paid for car (This irritated my husband quite a bit. Says he is accustomed to receiving the car keys in exchange for the check!)
August 26 - delivery date in Ingolstadt; primer shows thru paint
August 29 - picked up car after repainting, Ingolstadt
September 5 - delivered car to dock in Amsterdam
September 28 - car loaded on ship in Emden, Germany
October 13 - arrived at Port of Houston
October 18 - released by US customs
October 22 - finally picked up car at dealer in Houston

TIME89

Congratulation!!!!