ED Report: 2017 Allroad
06-11-2017, 09:54 AM
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ED Report: 2017 Allroad
I just got back from my European delivery, and (perhaps predictably!) it was a fantastic experience.
Below is a bit of a write-up of the whole experience. As others have said, this is a unique and highly recommended way to buy a car!
I wrote about the planning and ordering process here, so not much more to add to that apart from a few notes below. I also wrote about the Allroad itself and how it performed in a post here.
I bought a 2017 Glacier White Prestige Allroad, with all packages and options except the rear airbags.
Overall plan
I planned out a 12-day trip starting in Munich and ending in Hamburg. My logic was that I wanted to drop the car as close to Emden as possible, in case it made a slight difference with shipping time afterward, and Hamburg was easy to fly out of anyway. I had a friend joining me, and she was flying in the day before I got there and staying in Munich.
We booked all our hotels in advance, just to reduce the hassle later. In hindsight, this was a bit more of a hinderance than I would have thought, but overall it still worked well.
Because the car delivery was on a Tuesday, rather than fly in the night before I arrived Sunday to get acclimated and explore Munich a bit.
Airport pickup
With typical German efficiency, my pickup was waiting on time with a name placard, very easy process. There was some issue with the fact that my traveling companion had come in the day before, so the driver had to call his office to get permission to change the number of people - again, somehow very German! There was also confusion with the fact that we were being dropped at a different hotel than the pre-delivery pickup hotel, because of being there a day early. But really, a smooth process. The car was an A8L, very comfortable of course.
Hotel
Because I wanted to stay in the middle of Munich rather than at the airport, or in Ingolstadt, Brad just told me to go ahead and book/pay for the hotel myself and to send the checkout bill for them to cut me a check. No issues there, and it meant I got to stay centrally, walking distance to a lot of attractions. I'd definitely recommend this.
Delivery day
Again, a very prompt pickup in an A8L at 8:30 am on Tuesday morning, and an hour or so on the autobahn. The driver, comfortable with German roads (and perhaps showing off a bit) hit 150mph several times, all the time chatting amiably.
Arrival at the factory involved checking in, the vanishing of our luggage, and the magical appearance of a young lass to talk us through the day's schedule, the options for food, and so on. They give you a wristband which gives you free access to the restaurant and bar, which was all excellent. The schedule was an 11 am factory tour and a 2 pm delivery.
The factory tour was outstanding, and started precisely on time, and finished exactly on the promised 2 hours. It was an English-speaking tour, and the guide definitely knew her stuff and never had a problem answering any questions. They have 43K+ employees in the plant, which makes it more of a small city than anything else, with hospitals, supermarkets, etc.
The automation level was insane - I think she said 80% automated, which seems unreal, but when you see a robot pick something up, hand it to another robot which spot-welds it, then hands it on to yet another robot for assembly, it starts to add up. Even QC is handled automatically, with robots using a laser to measure the various clearances and so on - the gap between a door and the frame, for example, is precisely measured. They didn't allow photos of course, but it would be hard to do the whole thing justice with a camera anyway.
The delivery itself was obviously the highlight of the day (perhaps the trip!), partly just because it ended a LONG period of waiting! They walk you across a catwalk and down a curving stairway into the delivery room, and your luggage is waiting by the car. The guy doing the delivery was very patient, walking me through every significant feature and how to operate the various controls. During this, he hooks up a battery tender, which I was surprised at, but it made sense since we took some time to go through all the onboard menu options and so on. The only hiccup was that he was unable to get my companion's iPhone to pair with Bluetooth, eventually locking up the MMI. He gamely got out the manual and looked up the MMI restart sequence, and it came right, although we didn't manage to get the phone synced in the end, but didn''t actually need it.
There was a small gift waiting with our luggage - a couple of key rings, a coffee cup, and a gift box pen set.
Driving
Nothing too surprising here - the roads were generally excellent, the autobahn was a pleasure to drive on with other drivers keeping to the right by default (why don't they do that here??).
We did have to buy vignettes, which are a small sticker you put in your windscreen to allow you to drive on that country's freeways as a tourist. Once you have it you can just drive straight through the toll booth lanes marked with "Vignette" or similar. One thing to note is that it has to go exactly on the correct part of the windscreen - each one is different, and it's marked on the adhesive backing. Hungary was an exception - you just give them your license plate when you guy the vignette and they put it in the system so that you are marked as paid, so no sticker necessary.
Itinerary
Our trip started in Ingolstadt, and we headed south to Bled, in Slovenia. where we stayed two nights and did some light hiking.
From there we spent one night in the winery region just south of Graz, on the Austria / Slovenia border, and continued on the next day to Budapest.
After two nights in Budapest we headed up to Vienna for one night, then Prague for two, and finally Hamburg for two nights.
Overall, it was a good set of choices I think, but with just a bit too much packed in. I would have liked to spend more than a night or two in some places (like Prague, and the Austrian winery region), and not been so rushed - but that would have meant giving up a city, or extending the trip. My next trip I'll definitely be keeping this in mind.
If anyone is interested in any of our hotel choices, PM me and I'm happy to pass on details.
Hotels and parking
I spent quite a bit of time researching hotels and trying to find places that had some kind of parking option, and generally I think this paid off. Taking a shiny, immaculate new car into the narrow cobbled roads of some of our stops was a bit nervewracking, and I definitely stressed about leaving it anywhere that was tight. In the end, all our stops had either private street parking, or underground parking which resembled a small concrete coffin, with very tight parks - but I got lucky in each case and managed to find spots with a bit more space. Parking was universally expensive, ranging from €15 - €30 per night, but I expected that.
Dropoff
The only truly stressful part of the whole experience was the dropoff, and it really shouldn't have been. First, I had to get the car cleaned before dropping it - it was covered in a layer of multi-national dead bugs. The two images I had in my head were either a private detailer scrubbing a dirty cloth in swirl-inducing circles on the bodywork, or an automated car wash bashing the hell out of it. After some research I just gave up, shrugged, and took it to a Mr Wash (video review here:
It came out ok, and I'm counting on getting a detail followed by a coating when it gets back, the prepwork of which will hopefully sort out any issues.
Then I had to find the BLG location, which in Hamburg is on a kind of island with a bridge going to it. Google faithfully got us to the bridge, which was closed for construction. Talking to the BLG contact didn't help a lot because he misunderstood where we were and gave us directions that led us on a 2-hour hunt around a small village. After talking to several people we finally found someone who knew the area who directed us to a second bridge, and everything proceeded smoothly after that. The time in the BLG office was around half an hour, with a few pieces of paper to sign, after which they called us a taxi and I said goodbye to my car for the moment.
While I generally enjoy getting lost, in this case it was stress-inducing because BLG closed at 3 pm, which we came uncomfortably close to in the end. I thought I'd allowed plenty of time, but the lesson is, allow plenty of time then double it!
A few pictures below; there are more in my other post in the Allroad forum, and I'll also be putting some in the show-n-tell Allroad thread.
The pickup:
Bled, Slovena:
Vintgar Gorge, Slovenia:
Officially broken in:
Some other random photos:
Below is a bit of a write-up of the whole experience. As others have said, this is a unique and highly recommended way to buy a car!
I wrote about the planning and ordering process here, so not much more to add to that apart from a few notes below. I also wrote about the Allroad itself and how it performed in a post here.
I bought a 2017 Glacier White Prestige Allroad, with all packages and options except the rear airbags.
Overall plan
I planned out a 12-day trip starting in Munich and ending in Hamburg. My logic was that I wanted to drop the car as close to Emden as possible, in case it made a slight difference with shipping time afterward, and Hamburg was easy to fly out of anyway. I had a friend joining me, and she was flying in the day before I got there and staying in Munich.
We booked all our hotels in advance, just to reduce the hassle later. In hindsight, this was a bit more of a hinderance than I would have thought, but overall it still worked well.
Because the car delivery was on a Tuesday, rather than fly in the night before I arrived Sunday to get acclimated and explore Munich a bit.
Airport pickup
With typical German efficiency, my pickup was waiting on time with a name placard, very easy process. There was some issue with the fact that my traveling companion had come in the day before, so the driver had to call his office to get permission to change the number of people - again, somehow very German! There was also confusion with the fact that we were being dropped at a different hotel than the pre-delivery pickup hotel, because of being there a day early. But really, a smooth process. The car was an A8L, very comfortable of course.
Hotel
Because I wanted to stay in the middle of Munich rather than at the airport, or in Ingolstadt, Brad just told me to go ahead and book/pay for the hotel myself and to send the checkout bill for them to cut me a check. No issues there, and it meant I got to stay centrally, walking distance to a lot of attractions. I'd definitely recommend this.
Delivery day
Again, a very prompt pickup in an A8L at 8:30 am on Tuesday morning, and an hour or so on the autobahn. The driver, comfortable with German roads (and perhaps showing off a bit) hit 150mph several times, all the time chatting amiably.
Arrival at the factory involved checking in, the vanishing of our luggage, and the magical appearance of a young lass to talk us through the day's schedule, the options for food, and so on. They give you a wristband which gives you free access to the restaurant and bar, which was all excellent. The schedule was an 11 am factory tour and a 2 pm delivery.
The factory tour was outstanding, and started precisely on time, and finished exactly on the promised 2 hours. It was an English-speaking tour, and the guide definitely knew her stuff and never had a problem answering any questions. They have 43K+ employees in the plant, which makes it more of a small city than anything else, with hospitals, supermarkets, etc.
The automation level was insane - I think she said 80% automated, which seems unreal, but when you see a robot pick something up, hand it to another robot which spot-welds it, then hands it on to yet another robot for assembly, it starts to add up. Even QC is handled automatically, with robots using a laser to measure the various clearances and so on - the gap between a door and the frame, for example, is precisely measured. They didn't allow photos of course, but it would be hard to do the whole thing justice with a camera anyway.
The delivery itself was obviously the highlight of the day (perhaps the trip!), partly just because it ended a LONG period of waiting! They walk you across a catwalk and down a curving stairway into the delivery room, and your luggage is waiting by the car. The guy doing the delivery was very patient, walking me through every significant feature and how to operate the various controls. During this, he hooks up a battery tender, which I was surprised at, but it made sense since we took some time to go through all the onboard menu options and so on. The only hiccup was that he was unable to get my companion's iPhone to pair with Bluetooth, eventually locking up the MMI. He gamely got out the manual and looked up the MMI restart sequence, and it came right, although we didn't manage to get the phone synced in the end, but didn''t actually need it.
There was a small gift waiting with our luggage - a couple of key rings, a coffee cup, and a gift box pen set.
Driving
Nothing too surprising here - the roads were generally excellent, the autobahn was a pleasure to drive on with other drivers keeping to the right by default (why don't they do that here??).
We did have to buy vignettes, which are a small sticker you put in your windscreen to allow you to drive on that country's freeways as a tourist. Once you have it you can just drive straight through the toll booth lanes marked with "Vignette" or similar. One thing to note is that it has to go exactly on the correct part of the windscreen - each one is different, and it's marked on the adhesive backing. Hungary was an exception - you just give them your license plate when you guy the vignette and they put it in the system so that you are marked as paid, so no sticker necessary.
Itinerary
Our trip started in Ingolstadt, and we headed south to Bled, in Slovenia. where we stayed two nights and did some light hiking.
From there we spent one night in the winery region just south of Graz, on the Austria / Slovenia border, and continued on the next day to Budapest.
After two nights in Budapest we headed up to Vienna for one night, then Prague for two, and finally Hamburg for two nights.
Overall, it was a good set of choices I think, but with just a bit too much packed in. I would have liked to spend more than a night or two in some places (like Prague, and the Austrian winery region), and not been so rushed - but that would have meant giving up a city, or extending the trip. My next trip I'll definitely be keeping this in mind.
If anyone is interested in any of our hotel choices, PM me and I'm happy to pass on details.
Hotels and parking
I spent quite a bit of time researching hotels and trying to find places that had some kind of parking option, and generally I think this paid off. Taking a shiny, immaculate new car into the narrow cobbled roads of some of our stops was a bit nervewracking, and I definitely stressed about leaving it anywhere that was tight. In the end, all our stops had either private street parking, or underground parking which resembled a small concrete coffin, with very tight parks - but I got lucky in each case and managed to find spots with a bit more space. Parking was universally expensive, ranging from €15 - €30 per night, but I expected that.
Dropoff
The only truly stressful part of the whole experience was the dropoff, and it really shouldn't have been. First, I had to get the car cleaned before dropping it - it was covered in a layer of multi-national dead bugs. The two images I had in my head were either a private detailer scrubbing a dirty cloth in swirl-inducing circles on the bodywork, or an automated car wash bashing the hell out of it. After some research I just gave up, shrugged, and took it to a Mr Wash (video review here:
It came out ok, and I'm counting on getting a detail followed by a coating when it gets back, the prepwork of which will hopefully sort out any issues.
Then I had to find the BLG location, which in Hamburg is on a kind of island with a bridge going to it. Google faithfully got us to the bridge, which was closed for construction. Talking to the BLG contact didn't help a lot because he misunderstood where we were and gave us directions that led us on a 2-hour hunt around a small village. After talking to several people we finally found someone who knew the area who directed us to a second bridge, and everything proceeded smoothly after that. The time in the BLG office was around half an hour, with a few pieces of paper to sign, after which they called us a taxi and I said goodbye to my car for the moment.
While I generally enjoy getting lost, in this case it was stress-inducing because BLG closed at 3 pm, which we came uncomfortably close to in the end. I thought I'd allowed plenty of time, but the lesson is, allow plenty of time then double it!
A few pictures below; there are more in my other post in the Allroad forum, and I'll also be putting some in the show-n-tell Allroad thread.
The pickup:
Bled, Slovena:
Vintgar Gorge, Slovenia:
Officially broken in:
Some other random photos:
Last edited by FLkiwi; 06-11-2017 at 09:58 AM.
06-11-2017, 07:28 PM
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Excellent write up. Your allroad looks fabulous. Is it the virtual cockpit?
When drop off your car, did they share the shipping vessel schedule and all that?
Enjoy the beauty.
When drop off your car, did they share the shipping vessel schedule and all that?
Enjoy the beauty.
06-12-2017, 04:49 AM
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At drop off they gave me a contact email I could use to get the vessel info once it got selected and so on. While they were very good, and took the time to answer questions etc, I had the impression that my car was a very small cog in a large machine!
06-15-2017, 07:51 AM
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Awesome write up and pics! My euro delivery is supposed to come in next week so I'm super-impatient. I would agree with the drop off. Get there early for your time and it's not so bad though.
06-15-2017, 09:02 AM
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What did you get?
06-15-2017, 09:18 AM
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Hey, is that picture from Rothenburg?
06-15-2017, 09:43 AM
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As a reference point: I dropped off my car on Dec 15 just in time for the Christmas and New Year holidays. The boat sailed on Jan 16, arrived San Diego Feb 13, cleared customs same day. I picked it up at the dealer on Feb 27 eleven weeks after drop-off.
I'm thinking you will a have shorter wait as your transit distance, to the east coast, is much less.
I'm thinking you will a have shorter wait as your transit distance, to the east coast, is much less.
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06-15-2017, 10:44 AM
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As a reference point: I dropped off my car on Dec 15 just in time for the Christmas and New Year holidays. The boat sailed on Jan 16, arrived San Diego Feb 13, cleared customs same day. I picked it up at the dealer on Feb 27 eleven weeks after drop-off.
I'm thinking you will a have shorter wait as your transit distance, to the east coast, is much less.
I'm thinking you will a have shorter wait as your transit distance, to the east coast, is much less.
06-15-2017, 12:36 PM
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The city pic is in Prague, and the countryside ones are pretty random, somewhere between one of the cities I visited - can't remember which ones.
06-15-2017, 12:39 PM
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As a reference point: I dropped off my car on Dec 15 just in time for the Christmas and New Year holidays. The boat sailed on Jan 16, arrived San Diego Feb 13, cleared customs same day. I picked it up at the dealer on Feb 27 eleven weeks after drop-off.
I'm thinking you will a have shorter wait as your transit distance, to the east coast, is much less.
I'm thinking you will a have shorter wait as your transit distance, to the east coast, is much less.
Mine is coming to San Diego as well. So I dropped it off on the 10th of May and they estimate it coming into SD on the 21st of June so six weeks to the day. SD Audi needs a day or two to detail it and do the sealant,etc... but then it should be good to go. So I think it's really dependent on when the next tanker is sailing.