The final pickup/delivery papers finally arrived (last week). It came in a plain FedEx envelope Just a thank you letter, pickup document, drop off document, and trip itinerary outlining where I’m supposed to be and when ;-)
So far the ED experience is looking like that:
We’re arriving at Munich Airport on Saturday June 2nd at 5pm. We’re staying in Kempinski Hotel at the Airport. On Sunday we’re gonna take the S1 train to Munich, and spend a day there. Read more…
SO I guess it’s a time for another update. I finally received a call from my dealer that it’s time to come in and pay for the car. We’re picking it up on July 4th, and we went to pay for the car on June 4th. Exactly a month earlier. The payment process was pretty smooth. It took less than an hour. First, we went to our sales guy, talk to him for few minutes, and then he sent us to the finance manager. She was quite nice for a finance manager (I dealt with few of those before), but one thing to remember – she’s there to sell & upsell as well. Read more…
Few hours after sending a nasty email to Audi European Delivery Program team I received the following answer:
“Thank you for your mail. We are sorry for any inconvenience you may have experienced. Once vehicle production is complete and a VIN number is assigned to a vehicle, the Audi Forum Ingolstadt automatically locks in the delivery date requested on the Customer Information Form. If there is an issue with this date, the alternate date is used, and you and your dealer would have been contacted with further information and instructions. We have secured a delivery appointment for you on XXX at XX:XX AM, and your hotel reservation at XXX.
No further action is required at this point. We will contact your dealer with further instructions as we get closer to the July delivery date, and will have all delivery documents and the Agenda mailed to you approximately 2-4 weeks before your delivery date.”
Audi team needs to learn some communication skills. They said that they are reserving the delivery appointment for me, but never confirmed it. One quick email: “Hey, your date is confirmed. The next step is…” would be really nice. But I guess Audi wants to keep their customers uninformed. Not the best customer service imho.
Seems like all we have to do now is to pay for the car, and pick it up in Ingolstadt. The painful process is almost over ;-)
So it’s been 2 weeks since my last email from/to Audi. Still no date confirmation. Writing them a nasty email right now. This is getting really ridiculous.
My car was supposed to be manufactured in the week of April 9th. On the 22nd I decided to ask my dealer for an update. (I was assuming that they will contact me on their own with a progress report.. nope). So the response from my dealer was: “looks like your car is produced and and the VIN# is…”. That’s it!!!! no information about what the next step is, or what to do so I asked him… the response: “I’m not sure, I would email Audi and ask”. Are you f**n kidding me? What am I paying for? And what the heck are they doing there at the dealer? Are they sales people or paper-pushers? Read more…
I am fully aware that it seems like I abandoned this blog a while ago. Definitely not true. I’ve been busy with some other projects, and there was no new development nor info from Audi. Few weeks ago I received Audi Welcome Kit. It came in mid-size box. inside there was another box ;-) and in that box Audi branded folio. Inside of that folio, Audi branded pen, Audi branded luggage tag, and some paperwork to fill out and send back. Stuff like arrival dates / flight numbers, preferred delivery date etc. Nothing major. I was expecting a little bit more from Audi, but on the other hand I’m happy with what I got.
Below you’ll find some pics of the folio. Enjoy! Read more…
Once you place the order for your car, Audi will do their best to schedule the production date to coincide with your requested delivery date. Delivery of your new Audi at Audi Forum Ingolstadt technically should occur within 60 days from the date your car finishes production, but I was told that the 60 days deadline can be extended if communicated with Audi ahead of time. Audi will not confirm your delivery date until your car comes off of the production line and the VIN is assigned. Once you receive said confirmation it’s safe to book your flights and hotels (you get 1 night hotel stay paid by Audi – more about that soon). Important thing to remember when planning the trip is that there are no deliveries on weekends or German National Holidays. It’s recommended to arrive at Ingolstadt a day before the delivery. The travel is really tiring, and you want to be well rested on your delivery day to fully enjoy it ;-)
So what’s the day of delivery schedule?
Audi Forum does vehicle deliveries only in the morning. Read more…
Here’s what I received yesterday via email:
“We have received your European Delivery request from Audi of xxxxxx and have scheduled your request to coincide with a delivery in July. In the next few weeks you should expect to receive a welcome kit with additional Program details and information mailed directly to you via Fed Ex. Enclosed will also be a Customer information form to be completed and returned to Audi once your vehicle has finished production.
Please feel free to visit your area Audi dealer for more information, or contact us via this email address for any additional program questions. Thank you again for participating in the Audi European Delivery Program!
Kind regards,
The Audi European Delivery Program”
It’s been exactly 1 week from the day I placed the order at the dealership.
February 23rd, 2011
Piotr
So my next question, and my next research topic was: “what’s the process? What do I need? What do I need to do?”. This information (as usual) was not readily available, and different websites and different dealerships gave me contradicting facts. Audi folks, if you’re reading this, please make the information available at every dealership!!!. It’s not that difficult, and it would make this process a lot easier, and more pleasurable. A buyer should not have to do their own digging to figure out how to spend money with you ;) Read more…