I am back from my 2 weeks of vacation in Germany and France and it was awesome! I’m a little disappoint that I did not post updates on my blog while I was over there, but I had a good excuse – I was tired. While we were over there, we spend the entire day site seeing and we would get back to our hotel around 10pm at night. By then, we were so tired that we just went straight to bed.
Here’s a short recap of my Audi pickup experience:
Day 1 – Munich
Arrived a little after noon and walked over to the Kempinski Hotel that Audi provided us. We took an hour nap as we had been up over 24 hours and around 4pm, we took the train into downtown Munich. We didn’t know any German, but we managed to figure out which train stop is right in downtown. We looked around for a restaurant for dinner and chose the one that had an English menu.
After dinner, we went over to the Apple store to “borrow” their wifi so I can lookup where the BMW Welt is. The BMW Welt is the where they manufacture their cars and allow their customers to pickup their car. We headed over to the BWM Welt but by that time, it was already closed so we walked around the building and then headed back to the hotel.
Day 2 – Audi A3 Delivery Day
Audi picked us up at the hotel in the morning in an Audi A8L. That car is SO AMAZING! We sat in the back seats and there is a control panel in the middle back to allow the back passengers to adjust their seats, temperature, music, and more! It took us about 45 mins to get to the Audi Forum in Ingolstadt and as soon as we arrived and got out of the car, a lady was coming towards us with a luggage cart. ”Hello Ms. Hurley! My name is Miriam.” My first thought was, “I know who she is! She’s the main contact for all the American European Delivery.” She was extremely friendly. She asked us how our flight was and the hotel and told her they were excellent. She took our baggage and stowed it away in the back and gave us wrist bands and informed us that we can visit any of their cafeteria and all the food and drive will be on them. Then we did some paperwork and wait another 15 minutes for another person to hand us over the keys.
Once our turn was up, we spoke to another guide to sign some more paperwork such as the title and insurance and a letter saying I received the car. We finally got the keys to the car and both the guide and Miriam walked us to the car. The guide explained some features of the car and handed us the required First Aid kit, Emergency Triangle, and Emergency Vests for Europe. He also paired up my iPhone with the car. After all the explanation, I drove the car out to the courtyard and park it outside with all the other new Audis. We had some lunch and headed over to the factory tour where we met up with Miriam again. She handed us the tickets for the tour and hoped we enjoy our stay in Germany.
The factory tour was amazing! We got to see from the beginning of how they imprint the body panels from the sheet metal, how the machines weld all the body panels together, then having the assembly line of workers put together all the interior parts like the electrical wiring and dashboard into the car, and also the final part when the body mets the engine and terrain. We were not able to see the paint job as it was way far on the other side of the factory. After the tour, we headed over to the Audi museum where they had all the old-school cars and a Lamborghini exhibit that was there that month.
After Delivery Day
We drove the car around Germany and France and put about 1150 miles on the car before dropping it off. Speed limit is usually 130 km/h (80 mph) and there are certain parts of the Autobahn in Germany where their were no restrictions. The car can go up to 129 mph and it looked like it might have been limited to 129 mph due to the stock tires that comes with the car. After our vacation was over and it was time to head home, we drove the car to Munich Airport where we dropped off the car to have it shipped to the States. I’m hoping it will only be about another 4-6 weeks.
The experience has made me believe that the European Delivery on a European Car is the best way to buy the car. I know its a little more expensive because you will have to pay for the trip, but Europe (mainly Germany) is the best place to see how your car is really meant to drive. You can’t really drive 129 mph in the city or anywhere in the US legally. If I were to get another German car, I would do this again, but hopefully I wouldn’t need another car anytime soon.
. I sat there thinking about what else could be the issue and decided to just log into all 20 computers in that classroom to make sure the rest works. OMG! I found 5 more computers with the same trust issue! How long were these extra 5 computers down? Did no one report the issue during the semester or did it JUST break after the Spring semester was over?
