[Mark]

BIMMERPOST NEWS

The story behind the Building of Your X3

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I know many of you guys have used the feature offered by BMWUSA.com to be able to watch your new X3 being built on video. In fact a few of you have posted up your vids. Well if you ever wondered what went into creating the system behind the system, this video does a great job explaining it all.

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[Mark]

You have to start somewhere before expanding....

[Mark]

Originally Posted by F25X3

they film my car beeing build anyway, as the cameras are on 24/7. so why not allow everybody else to view it? Its total BS if u ask me. i probably paid more for the car and some people can and others dont. BS

Wow. Relax Watching the video, theres obviously a bit of logistics that goes on behind the scenes, I myself thought the same as you before watching it.. "oh yea they just film it and put it online-- simple", but now I realize theres a team behind this and alot more work than it seems, the cameras are the easy part, coordinating the videos and pushing them online takes a whole lot more resources.

Now I'm assuming here, but from my own personal experience, when I want to roll something out, I do it on a smaller scale first, iron out the kinks, make sure its working, the right videos are getting to the right people, and find out if its actually useful or not.

If it turns out to be usefull, successful and actually works, then I would roll it out on a larger scale.

For right now, this seems to be a project undertaken by BMWUSA. I have a feeling that if it works out the way they want it to, they would propose the idea to BMW AG to put the videos onto other country sites for international buyers who are getting cars produced at Spartanburg, maybee roll it out into other factories as well (would be nice to watch an M3 getting built!). Does BMW UK yet offer a way to track your BMW the way BMWUSA.com does?

For now its a nice bonus BMWUSA is offering people, I think you might be jumping out a little from the gates to have an EXPECTATION of a video of your car at this point. Maybee in the future it will become a standard part of car buying, who knows, but hopefully...

[tuco44]

Originally Posted by F25X3

they film my car beeing build anyway, as the cameras are on 24/7. so why not allow everybody else to view it? Its total BS if u ask me. i probably paid more for the car and some people can and others dont. BS

[MA78]

I would guess that the reason CA, EU and AU don't get the video has nothing to do with the logistics on the factory side. Look at the BMWusa website and compare it to the others. It's far more up-to-date(equally short on information). You guys just have lazy IT folk in your BMW HQs.

[uhn2000]

Wow.. just incredible..

[sfax]

Originally Posted by MA78

I would guess that the reason CA, EU and AU don't get the video has nothing to do with the logistics on the factory side. Look at the BMWusa website and compare it to the others. It's far more up-to-date(equally short on information). You guys just have lazy IT folk in your BMW HQs.

+1 The BMW UK website team are most likely to be the reason that this not yet available in the UK. No portal to watch your X3's production video, no online order tracking, still no user manual PDF. Oh and a configurator that doesn't keep falling over would be nice

[uter]

I think watching one's own car being assembled would be great.

It's interesting the lesson BMW learned from MINI about how profitable it is to have customers make custom orders, and this encourages that type of purchase. If I was a dealer, I'd be promoting this technology to get people into my dealership, but make purchases that I'd never have to stock as inventory.

[cmk227]

Awesome. I would
Have loved to have the video of my M being built. Good job
BMW and make this option standard on all model in the future.

[The_Bear_Yid]

Why is it only available in the USA?

Because their team came up with the idea and the video is from a plant in Cali. The end.

As said, if it is seen as a good idea it will probably be rolled out elsewhere. I'd bet that the money men wouldn't allow this though as maybe people outside of the USA wouldn't care as much?

[MrsAdams2007]

While I think it's a bonus to purchasing the X3, there are in truth only a few 'real' shots of your personal car being built. Very cool, but not worth getting your panties in a bunch IMO.

[Alex170177]

Abnormal. For sure

[Alex170177]

I installed it yesterday. You'll get an e-mail with a file. Just copy it to a CD and insert in the car in-dash dvd reader...

...so far it's been working great. Dvd and TV are unlocked !! Now i can drink, drive and watch TV at the same time!!!

[LEDZEP]

Great post Mark, thanks for sharing that. Being a freak that loves to track my order progress, I love that they're doing this for us. Hopefully it will expand to the other markets as well. We in the US can probably help promote that by giving some positive feedback about the videos and how much we appreciate them.

[AJWilson]

Are you sure you hav'nt missed anything

Originally Posted by sfax

+1 The BMW UK website team are most likely to be the reason that this not yet available in the UK. No portal to watch your X3's production video, no online order tracking, still no user manual PDF. Oh and a configurator that doesn't keep falling over would be nice

[jijioben]

I'd like for this to be in Canada too, but I think that since setting up this system is a marketing expense, maybe BMW CA is not interested because they already sell all of their allocation... My cynical view, I guess.

[tuco44]

Originally Posted by jijioben

I'd like for this to be in Canada too, but I think that since setting up this system is a marketing expense, maybe BMW CA is not interested because they already sell all of their allocation... My cynical view, I guess.

It would great for Cdn buyers to have this, I agree; but don't hold your breath, as the Cdn website configurator still has the $1800 previous sport pkg option instead of the MSport pkg at $2900. This option changed as of April 1, but the website needs to be updated.....c'mon people at BMW Canada.

[sfax]

We feel your pain. The UK website is just as bad, if not worse (when it's actually working at all that is). It's an embarrassment, really. It's not that difficult to get right, surely?