[Matt1002]

Made a reply on an existing thread, but I’m kind of excited and wanted to share!
Car’s not gonna be mine (I’m 17, driving age here is 18..) but I helped my mom through the whole ordering process and was there everytime we went to the dealer... I’m a car guy after all.

We were looking to replace my mom’s aging 2012 B200 CDI that’s starting to have damper problems, and we wanted something bigger since the boot space in the B Benz is quite petite. First looked at an X1 but interior was so-so. In the Netherlands X3 is 15K € more expensive than an X1, but that’s because of emissions and sales tax. This car was a diplomatic order, (my mom is from France, expat in the Netherlands) and without all the taxes the way-better in our opinion X3 was only €5K more, so it would’ve been dumb not to go for it. It did take a bit of convincing though, the X3 is considered as a big car here in the Netherlands and my mom wasn’t too keen on that at first!

We went for the base engine after trying it out on a test drive. My mom was afraid it wasn’t going to cut it for her since she doesn’t like slow cars, but she didn’t have to worry since 8.4sec 0-100kmh is already 1.6 seconds faster than her current Benz (which though slower, feels faster since it’s a diesel, which has more torque) :P and a big engine isn’t really needed since the car is maybe driven 10K KM max a year, mostly 15 min trips to work and the casual 3hr trip to France 2-3 times a year

So, the specs, random order;
-Metallic Paint Sophisto Grey
-M sport package (with 19 inch M wheels Style 698, Ferric grey)
-Pano roof
-BMW individual chrome window surrounds
-Leather Vernasca Cognac
-Adaptive CC
-Adaptive LED headlights + LED taillights
-Adaptive dampers
-Navi professional + Connecteddrive, Apps etc
-Heated seats front and rear
-Heated steering wheel
-Adjustable rear seat back rests
-Park assist Plus
-Hi-Fi speaker system
-Multifunctional instrument cluster (looks way better than the half plastic version)
-“Fineline” Cove wood trim (matte)
-Sensatec Dashboard
-Acoustic glazing
-Galvanic Embellisher for controls
-Comfort Access
-Comfort telephony with wireless charging

I think that’s it! There’s more “freebies” (performance control, sport steering etc) in the M sport pack but I didn’t bother including those, these are the paid options we took.

Things we deliberately did not choose;
-Drivers assistance and lane warning stuffs. My mom knows how to fly a plane, I think she’s fine without And on the test drive in an x3 with these systems the vibrating steering wheel was apparently really annoying. The blind spot system wasn’t really doing it’s job, rather just alerting for vehicles clearly visible in the mirrors.. so we weren’t sold on that.

HUD; distracting, and honestly, the same info doesn’t need repeating on three different displays

Memory seats; only one person will be driving the car, so no need for memory. One less thing that could break!

That’s basically it! Our SA at the dealer told us that it could be delivered in December if they find a Sophisto Grey 20i they can modify to our options, but he isn’t sure if it’s allowed since it’s a diplomatic order. If it’s to be built from scratch, it should be delivered mid-late January. It’s going to be from Spartanburg.

Service from BMW has been really nice overall, but sometimes a bit too relaxed... for example, signed the purchase agreement last Saturday, 20th of October and an email with a link to where we could make the downpayent for the car would be sent to us ASAP, probably on Tuesday 23 since the SA was off on Monday.

It’s sunday the 28th, and we’ve heard nothing from our dealer

Anyways, no hurry, if we don’t get anything tomorrow I’ll place a call to wake them up.

Can’t wait till it’s delivered!

-M

[titomi]

Congratulations on the decision Things are sometimes very slowly here in Netherlands compared to other EU countries, so no worries. Down-payment is not as important as one would think.

Did you asked specifically for a US build?

I would add parking assistant plus (5DN) to get the cameras. For such a big (in my opinion it is, but not huge) car, it is quite handy to have them. They already helped a few times on parking lots to squeeze better to parking space.

[Matt1002]

Originally Posted by titomi

Congratulations on the decision Things are sometimes very slowly here in Netherlands compared to other EU countries, so no worries. Down-payment is not as important as one would think.

Did you asked specifically for a US build?

I would add parking assistant plus (5DN) to get the cameras. For such a big (in my opinion it is, but not huge) car, it is quite handy to have them. They already helped a few times on parking lots to squeeze better to parking space.

We did get the parking assist plus! It’s in the options list We saw the 360° camera and found it was super handy indeed, a whole difference compared to annoying high-pitched beeps and no camera in the Mercedes we got now.

And no, we did not ask for US build but the SA told us it was going to be an American built car. I thought only M40i was built in the US, but apparently not!

[titomi]

ou yes.. it's there.... my bad . Well.. happy waiting

[Matt1002]

Update: Order has been sent to BMW Special Sales in Germany.

SA called yesterday and asked us “I checked your order, and are you sure you want the satin aluminum roof rails but Shadow Line window trim?” Turns out, we switched from Luxury Line which has standard Satin Aluminium window trim to MSport without changing the black trim to Satin alum. Glad to know our SA is attentive! Would’ve looked funny otherwise.

When we ordered we also forgot to add the Extra Large fuel tank, and because it was only 34,00€ we added it on.

Delivery has been promised and signed at 2.5-3 months.

[titomi]

Sometimes you don't see obvious unless someone points it out. We added anthracite headliner for example, after we were told, that it would be maybe too much color in the interior, and we agreed. And I must say, that the interior is more consistent with it. For you it will be "for free" if you want it (if something didn't change).

[Matt1002]

Originally Posted by titomi

Sometimes you don't see obvious unless someone points it out. We added anthracite headliner for example, after we were told, that it would be maybe too much color in the interior, and we agreed. And I must say, that the interior is more consistent with it. For you it will be "for free" if you want it (if something didn't change).

True! And we did take the Anthracite headliner because the interior is going to be cognac over black which means that a grey headliner would clash with the black door panels and door pillars, as well as the dashboard. Now it will just be black interior with cognac seats and door pieces, and the fine line matte wood “cove”

I think it looks really good.