Today ended nearly ten weeks of waiting: I finally picked up my car at the BMW factory in South Carolina. Even though the factory itself was closed to visitors, it was still a pretty busy day.
After a brief classroom session, we got out to our cars. Well, not our cars, but ones similar to ours. Seven of us were there for delivery. Mine was the only 1-Series, there were three 335is, a 650i, an M3, and an M5. We split up into two groups. I wound up with two of the 335is and first we went to learn about the antilock braking system.
The braking exercise was simple enough-- and I was pretty impressed at just how quick one of these things can whoa down from 55 mph. But mostly, it was an exercise that burned some time until the other group was done with the track over the hill from us.
The track session was, not surprisingly, my favorite part. And since I was solo, I got to run it twice; I went back out after the other two cars changed to the other car. This made up for having to pull into the pits once each session since I'd caught the heavier 3-Series ahead of me.
The last track session we drove was a demonstration of the traction control mechanisms. We each spun a car out on the wet skid pad with it turned off, then did then went out and did the same thing with the system on. Fun stuff.
After that, we had the option of one of the instructors taking us out for a lap in one of the M3s. After half a lap of hooning about, he settled in. I thought as he was driving, "Ah, the Scandinavian Flick", and at that point, he started describing what he was doing. "That's called a Scandinavian Flick", he noted...
After that, I met up with my delivery specialist, Nick, who took me to my car's own showroom and spent a good hour and a half going over how all the different greeblies in the car worked. Since I got the Tech package, even though I had already read the owner's manual, this refresher was still useful.
Lunch was at the Center's cafetorium, and wasn't half bad. Beat most cafeteria, and had a surprising menu-- as an example, I had a side dish of grilled eggplant.
After lunch, my half of the group went out to the off-road track in a group of X5s. I must admit some hesitance before I went into the water trap after my experience with hydro locking the Mustang during Hurricane Irene.
At one point, to demonstrate the trucks' weight balance, the instructor put the truck on three wheels where a set of moguls held the front right and back left well above the back right, and the front left was in the air. He then got out and lifted the rear wheel by hand to put the X5 on its front wheel. While I knew BMW liked to build cars balanced between front and rear, I had no idea that extended to their trucks as well.
After that, I was on my way to Atlanta, cruising down I-85 bouncing around between 5th and 7th gears to try to keep the engine RPMs varied during break-in, where I met up with a half dozen or so folks for dinner at the Salad Trough. How surprising...
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