Richard Solomon

2013-12-23 Placed deposit at dealer
2014-01-06 Dealer asked for desired delivery date
2014-01-07 E-mailed requesting 5/26 delivery
2014-01-10 Received dealer acknowledgement of 5/26 request and commission showing order placed 2014-01-06.
2014-01-28 Dealer indicated 5/26 booked full, offered 5/27 per Audi. Accepted 5/27 and requested first thing in the morning.
2014-02-24 Dealer provided status showing "Factory Order Bank (10)" with production scheduled for week 15/2014 and 04/07/2014.
2014-03-12 Email exchange with Amanda @ Audi - confirmed 5/27 delivery, offered 5/26 tour, Offered Neckarsulm on 5/26.
2014-03-13 Email exchange with Amanda @ Audi - agreed to and confirmed 5/26 delivery in Neckarsulm, provided first customer information form. She's checking on tour details.
2014-04-07 E-mailed dealer and got status report showing vehicle built and inspected as of 2014-04-05
2014-04-17 Paid dealer
2014-05-01 Welcome packet received via e-mail
2014-05-26 Picked up at Audi Forum Neckarsulm (8mi)
2014-05-30 Dropped off at BLG Logistics Frankfurt (921mi)
2014-06-16 Loaded on ship (Tranquil Ace) at Emden per AoA ED folks
2014-06-18 Ship departs Emden
2014-07-03 Ship arrives Houston
2014-07-01* Cleared Customs per AoA ED folks (yes, before port date)
2014-07-05 Port arrived
2014-07-07 Release to carrier
2014-07-08 Truck loaded
2014-07-10 Dealer arrival (per system)
2014-07-11 Delivered (932 miles)

Note that AoA ED provided that oddity customs clearance date, and that my dealer swears up and down he didn't have the car until 7/11 no matter what the system says about 7/10.

6 weeks dropoff to re-delivery! I have to say it looked for the longest time like it would take MUCH longer.

YMMV of course.

alatsacto

Great detailed timeline. Just curious, how did you get to Neckarsulm? Did you fly into to Munich first? When our original delivery date didn't work at Ingolstadt, they offered to have us take delivery in Neckarsulm. I actually liked that idea because it gave me an excuse to stop by either Stuttgart or Nuremberg. However we were told we had to find our own transportation to Neckarsulm from Munich. But at the end of the day, we had to pick and pick another date, since we had six people in our group and transporting to Neckarsulm with all of our luggage wasn't really a cost effective option.

Richard Solomon

VW minivan from FRA to to the hotel in Neckarsulm (provided by Audi along with a driver)*. Frankfurt was MUCH cheaper for my dates than MUC would have been, so we were already flying there and planning to train to MUC. Note that there are often good multi-passenger tickets on German railways - I don't now remember, but an ICE ticket for 2 adults was EUR 15-20 more than for one (maybe EUR 60 for the first one) and the 2 kids were free. The DB iOS app shows that stuff pretty well....

I really wanted to tour Neckarsulm because that's where the A6/S6 get built, so we got to see the car's birthplace


*It seems that if you have more than 2 people, Audi sends a van. We had 1 suitcase and some tiny daypacks, so could easily have fit in the apparently traditional A8.... if some future ED'er falls into a similar category s/he might consider asking the AoA ED folks to reserve a car, not a van. Our driver's rapidity clearly wasn't limited by the minivan, so I have no complaints - and he very helpfully taught me how to recognize the speed cameras

alatsacto

Nice, that's good you had that option. Yeah they picked us up in a VW minivan as well, but that made sense since we had 6 people and 10+ luggage. Hahah LOL. I had already booked my airfare to Munich, plus we wanted to check out Oktoberfest, so at the end of the day I had no complaints. But that's cool, I'll keep that in mind in case I have any future EDs with Audi.

Yikes we could have used those tips, cuz we got a ticket mailed to us months later from Switzerland. Unfortunately our driver didn't speak much English, so we didn't get any of those tips.

Richard Solomon

Months? Holy carp!


I thought I'd be safe by now

Our driver didn't speak much English either but we pidgin'ed our way through - he was obviously a car person and once he figured out what we were there for "Ah oct? Ah zex?" "Nein, S zex!" he became downright talkative

alatsacto

For us, it was the rental car that got flagged and not our SQ5. Yeah I want to say it was somewhere between 3-6 months. It was definitely after our car was delivered back to us. Hahah. It was like around $150, so not as bad as our California speeding tix.