Comfy

Can someone explain to me how do we save $$ on doing a European delivery please. To me , the cost of travel , airfare/ hotels will simply outweigh any savings you may make on the negotiated price. So where's the saving part?

alatsacto

Well if you are doing it looking to do it for a significant savings, you won't find it. Plus you are going into it with the wrong mindset and doing it for all the wrong reasons. It's all about the experience of picking up your custom built car and driving it throughout Europe. Think of it as a vacation and an excuse to plan a trip to Europe. I purposely planned our trip so that we would make it for Oktoberfest in Munich. Plus I planned a vacation where my wife and I could take both sets of parents to travel Europe. We didn't have kids yet, so it was a perfect opportunity for all of us. I always looked at ED as the potential savings from your car might cover the cost of your trip.

I'll start by saying, this comparison is definitely a very rough estimate in potential savings and costs. Depending on which car you are getting and where you live, this may determine how much leeway you may have on negotiating on a price without ED. While some have negotiated a discount between 5-7% on their own, let's start with a premise where you are paying the full MSRP without ED first. To keep things simple, let's just say for a $50k car, the 5% ED savings would be $2,500. You get a free night of hotel at Kempinski (probably closer to $300) but you can probably find cheaper hotels for less, so let's just call that $200. You also get free transportation to the factory from Munich, which is almost a 1 hour drive (not sure how you would calculate this cost, a taxi ride might be $50-100). For us, we had 6 people and around 12 items of luggage that needed to be transported. Audi worked with us and was able to accommodate my entire group and gave them the full experience as well. While not great food, you get all the food you can eat while you are at the Audi Forum for the day. You get to take delivery on your brand new car. You can experience the factory tour and visit the Audi museum. There's no real cost associated with those, but it was definitely a nice experience to be pampered for the day.

The cost that people don't take into account would be the comparable rental car and insurance you would need to substitute your new car. Audi pays for up to 2 weeks of car insurance for your car. We had to rent a second car (Mercedes C180) for 1 week. We got a great deal at $400 without any insurance (our AMEX card fully covered our rental), so that could be potentially $800 if you rented for 2 weeks. Add on insurance (at around $20-30 per day) and let's just call it an extra $300 for the 2 weeks. So if you maxed it out and stayed for around 2 weeks, the cost saved on a rental car could be around $1100 on the low end.

So using some of my assumptions, you saved potentially $2500 + $200 + $1100 = $3800, so let's round that up to an even $4000 for 2 weeks or around $3500 for 1 week.

Now for your costs. For our trip in October 2013, we went from Munich -> Ingolstadt -> Austria -> passing by Italy to go through Stelvio Pass -> Lucerne -> Paris -> Brussels -> Amsterdam. Hotel costs all depend on what you are looking for. We avoided "cheap" hotels but our hotel costs ranged from $100-300, but the calculated average was around $150 per night for 1 room for 2 people. Let's just call it around $1000 per week. Our airfare costs were a little over $1100 per person round trip to fly from California to Munich, then from Amsterdam back to California. I'm not sure where you would be flying from, but I'm flying the furthest distance, so that cost would potentially be cheaper for most. This is just the very basics of transportation and hotels, not considering food, gas, and other expenses. A one week trip would cost you around $3000 for 2 people and $4000 for 2 weeks. So like I mentioned at the beginning, in the end, the potential savings from doing ED will approximately cover the cost of your trip. Now of course, this was under the assumption you were paying full MSRP, which I know is a very loose assumption.

Having gone through European Delivery on our SQ5, I recommend it for people who like to travel and have the vacation time. I wouldn't recommend taking as many people as we did, probably whatever you can fit in the car you are purchasing is the right amount. While it can get stressful trying to plan a trip while dealing with the timing of it all, as opposed to simply into a dealership and driving a car home that same day, I actually enjoyed the anticipation and planning the trip. I say GO FOR IT and enjoy the journey.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask, since this stuff is still pretty fresh in my mind plus I still have all my notes from our trip. In addition, there are some even more experienced guys on the ED discussion group as well. Good luck with whatever option you choose.

A6forMoi

I'm familiar with the BMW program, but not the Audi one. Does Audi have a lower MSRP (and invoice) for European Delivery? For BMW that is where a lot of the savings come from - even if you pay Euro Delivery MSRP you're ~7% lower than US MSRP, and you can usually negotiate down closer to ED invoice (which is also about 7% lower than US invoice).

alatsacto

Unfortunately Audi only gives a 5% discount off of the US MSRP. Audi is one of the least discounted ED programs out there.

Reggie

For me - the idea of driving my brand new Audi on European roads - with strange markings and driving culture issues - and multilane driving circles - just is a risk I would not even like to consider.

TIME89

alatsacto - give you best answer. ED is not for saving - but for experience.
But is nice to know, that you get 5% off MSRP and free one night at very nice hotel, transportation from your hotel to Audi Forum, free Audi museum pass, free food at Audi Form, free car insurance for 14 days ($1000 deductible), free tank of gas.
You can start here
http://wiki.audiworld.com/index.php/EDFAQ
and than check out Audi ED thread:
https://www.audiworld.com/forums/audi-euro-delivery-program-discussion-124/

Read, ask questions - we will glad to help you.

TIME89

It's a joy!!! It was our family BEST VACATION EVER!!!!
1850 miles, 7 countries!!!!!
Experience drive your car on autobahn at 130 ml/h legally -
there are some things money can't buy!!!
And if you lucky - drive your car on Nürburgring!

MP4.2+6.0

no need to head to Europe. I think I remember a basic circle or two in Aspen too.

More seriously, having done it twice, the Euro road discipline and average driver competence levels far exceeds the US, so I have been comfortable there. Nav systems--you have to use Garmins since factory Nav isn't turned on--help with a lot of the directional, signage and possible language stuff.

alatsacto

Yeah on the face of it, it definitely seems scary and I'd be the first to admit I was worried too, but in reality European people drive with much more courtesy than at least California drivers. It gets a little scarier going inside of metropolitan cities, but it would be no different than in the US. Plus you probably want to avoid driving once you enter large cities, because public transportation within large European cities is much more convenient.

For the life of me, I can't understand why us Californians can't follow this simple concept of only using the fast lane as a passing lane. I was going to generalize this for all Americans, but actually driving in Oregon and Washington was pleasant. It shouldn't matter whether you are driving 65mph or 90mph. You move to the left to pass and then move back out to cruise. It drives me crazy especially on long road trips like to LA, where there are two lanes, but everyone is CLOGGING the passing lane. You experience this on the AutoBahn while driving 100+ mph and you experience this on other remote freeways. It's smart and common courtesy. Sorry for the RANT...

MP4.2+6.0

Having done it, you can also marry it to the Audi loyalty program and pull some more $/effective percent discount out