Hey everyone,
I know we have been dealing with the whole tracking journey for the last few months and I wanted to put together a post, based on another one I found on these forums, but specific to tracking BMW vehicles from Mexico. I hope you don't mind but I used some images from your posts, as well as others on the forums. Hopefully the next crop of trackers and people find this useful. Feel free to let me know if I forgot anything and I'd be happy to edit it. Also feel free to sticky this or put this somewhere where it can be easy for the G87, G20 etc. crowd to find.
The Basics:
BMW vehicles built in Mexico.- 2 series, including the M2
- 3 series, NOT including the M3
The easiest way to tell is once you get your VIN, which won't happen until later in the process when your car has started production (~2 weeks before your production week):
- Starts with a 3: Built in Mexico.
- Starts with a W: Built in Germany.
Ordering:
Step 1: Find a dealership with an allocation.
When you are looking to place an order for your vehicle, I suggest trying to find a dealership with an allocation. An allocation means that the dealership has an open "slot" available right now with a build week for a specific vehicle. An allocation means you have a car. If you have a dealership you can trust, you could place an order with them even if they don't have an allocation. But without an allocation, you are relying on the dealership to fill your order with the next allocation they get. To find a dealership with an allocation, simply call around.
Tips:
- Your first question should be "Do you have an allocation?" Note that different BMW vehicle allocations are separate and are not interchangeable. i.e. an allocation for a 3 series cannot be exchanged for an allocation for a 2 series.
- Contact high volume, high performing dealerships such as the ones found here with Center of Excellence awards. https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/usa/a...language=en_US
- Ask forum members or check the pricing threads. Members often provide leads on great dealerships.
- High performing dealerships also tend to get the most allocations or can even trade with other dealerships for allocations.
- You do not necessarily need to buy from a dealership near you! There are many dealerships across the country who would be willing to ship the car to you after they receive it, provided you pay shipping. Even with cost of shipping this can be a less expensive option than going with a local dealership who won't budge on pricing.
Step 2: Agree upon a purchase price.
Before you mention anything about whether you are going to finance or lease or rebates/incentives, agree upon a purchase price. There may be some exceptions to this, such as certain corporate discounts which you have to mention to the dealership right away. But aside from that, always get an agreed upon purchase price BEFORE applying incentives or rebates. To find out what rebates are available check the BMW site and do a search on the forums here for incentives. You could also check the "pricing thread" of your vehicle's forum.
Tips:
- Check BMW site for offers.
- Be sure to read the fine print on rebates and incentives, as some of them have requirements. If in doubt ask on the forums.
- I would check with the pricing thread on the specifics of leasing/financing as well as the pricing of your deal.
Step 3: Place your order
Once you have an agreed upon price, get it in writing! Then, place your order, put down your deposit (if required), and ask for your production order number (if your dealership had an allocation). This is a 7 digit number that ties you to the allocation. You should receive this production number within a few hours or within the next day at the latest.
Tips:
- The production order will be used to track your car and check status. So keep this number handy!
- Ask your dealer what the build week is for your allocation. The build week is the week your car is tentatively scheduled to FINISH production. It will start production a week or two before then.
- Here is an image of my order. You can see the start of the production order number. Notice it also shows my port of entry BALPOA (Port of Baltimore)
Step 4: Verify your order
When you get your design/spec sheet ALWAYS verify the items that are listed on there. It will be listed by description and option code. Check, double check and triple check these lines because dealerships very often can mess this up and this is going to be what is included in your vehicle, so make sure it's everything that you wanted.
Here is a list of some of the common options available:
0ZAX Apple CarPlay Compatibility
0ZDY Driving Assistance Professional Package
0ZHO Shadowline Package
0ZMP M Sport Package
0ZPK Parking Assistance Package
0ZPP Premium Package
0ZTM Tier 2 - US Emission Standards
0ZX1 Active Park Distance Control
0ZX2 Rear View Camera
0ZX3 Surround View w/ 3D View
01CB CO2 Content
01CR Remote Engine Start
01PP 19-Inch M Double Spoke (791 M) Jet Black w/ Performance Runflats
2TB 8 Speed Sport Automatic Transmission
2VB Tire Pressure Monitor
2VF Adaptive M Suspension
2VL Variable Sport Steering
248 Heated Steering Wheel
258 Runflat Tires
3BE Mirror Caps in Black
3DZ No M Badges
3MF M Shadowline Lights
3M2 M Sport Brakes with Red Calipers
302 Alarm System
316 Power Tailgate
319 Universal Garage Door Opener
322 Comfort Access Keyless Entry
33B M Sport Package Pro
337 M Sport Package
04KL Aluminum Trim with Mesh Effect
04NE Blow-By Heater (Heating Option)
04UR Ambient Lighting
403 Glass Sun/Moon Roof
430 Auto Dimming Interior and Exterior Mirrors
431 Auto Dimming Rearview Mirror
459 Power Front Seats
465 40/20/40 Split Rear Seat
481 Sport Seats
488 Lumbar Support (Driver & Passenger)
493 Storage Compartment Package
494 Heated Seats (Front)
5AC High-Beam Assistant
5AL Active Protection (Safety)
5AP Decoding for Non-Dazzle High Beams
5AR Extended Traffic Jam Assistant
5AU Active Driving Assistant Pro
5AV Active Guard (Pedestrian Collision System)
5DN Parking Assistant Plus
5DS Emergency Trunk Release
534 Three Zone Auto Climate Control
552 Full LED Headlights
6AC BMW Assist eCall
6AE BMW Teleservices
6AK ConnectedDrive Services
6C4 Connected Package Pro
6DR Drive Recorder
6NX Wireless Device Charging
6U3 BMW Curved Display with HUD
6VB Control Infotainment (iDrive)
645 US Radio
655 SiriusXM Satellite Radio
688 Harmon Kardon Surround Sound System
7M9 Extended Shadowline Trim
710 M Steering Wheel
715 Aerodynamic Kit
754 Rear Spoiler
760 High-Gloss Shadowline Exterior Trim
775 Anthracite Headliner
8EK Shipping Protection Package
8KL Oil Change 10000 Miles/12 Months
8R9 Refrigerant (Air Conditioning) - R1234yf
8SM VIN Visible From Outside
8TN Daytime Driving Lights
8WT Control K
823 Tropical Countries Export
840 High Speed Limit (155 MPH)
842 Cold Climate Version
845 Audible Seat Belt Warning Signal
853 English Language Descriptions
925 Shipping Package
992 Coordination License Plate Attachment
Tracking:
Tracking your car is a process in and of itself. You can sit back and relax, or you can drive yourself crazy with obsession. Either way, it's a fun ride.
The Tracking Basics
To start, learn the BMW Genius phone number: 1.844.4GENIUS (443-6487). BMW Genius has access to the same information as your dealership. Sometimes they can be extremely useful and other times they can be quite misinformed, so take what they tell you with a grain of salt, especially when it comes to your vehicle moving from the factory to the port in Mexico.
Initially your order will probably be status code 111 within a day of ordering. Then once it's closer to production it will move to status 112, scheduled for production. Then, status 150. When you start production (status 150) you'll be able to get your VIN number.
You can also track your car using the My BMW site with your production order number, and the automated 1800 number, but both tend to be several days behind and out of date.
https://www.bmwusa.com/secured/content/forms/login.aspx Note: Do not be concerned if you enter your production order number into the My BMW site and it shows the wrong colors/options. That is normal and will update much later in the process.
There is also the F12 trick. This can be used to do a few useful things. Namely:
- Verify the options selected for your build
- Check for your production date once you are in status 150
To do this you need to be on your main MyGarage page under "My Vehicles", NOT in the "Track My BMW" page. Once there, on Google Chrome you can press F12 and it will pop up a window on the side. Refresh the page and expand the menu shown below:
This menu will show you all your options and will list your "prodDate", which is only available once you go into production and is your estimated date for the COMPLETION of your build.
Here is a list of common status codes and their meanings:
111 Order booked with quota
[Order received]
112 Order for daily package planning (production) provided
[Scheduled for production]
**** Up to this point you can still make changes to the car such as options, colors, etc. However, once the car goes to status 150, you cannot make any changes since the car is now in production!
150 Planning of shell and F12 date shown
[Production begins]
151 Receipt of shell
[Exterior body assembly begins]
152 Receipt of paint shop
[In paint booth]
153 Receipt of assembly
[Entering assembly line]
154 Final assembly/inspection
[Assembly in progress]
155 End of assembly and final inspection/review
[Quality check, Final assembly]
160 Vehicle handover from factory to trucking for port delivery
[Ready for transport]
165 Port exit and transit to ship
[In transit]
193 Arrived at US port
[At the port]
195 Left port and put on a truck to dealership
[In transit]
196 Shipment arrival at dealership
[At the dealership]
198 Delivery complete
[Vehicle delivered]
General Timeline of Events
The first thing I want to mention is that the start time of your car being built is completely determined by the build week attached to your allocation. It doesn't matter when you placed the order! Also of special note, individual options (such as special interior color or paint color) will always delay your build by weeks or even months, so be prepared. Please note that the timeline below is for US delivery Priority 1 vehicles. ED vehicles may see additional delays at port/VPC.
The second thing I want to mention is that your build week is actually the week your car is scheduled to FINISH production. So, it should start production a week or two before the build week.
Lastly, the timelines below are general and based on if everything goes as planned. There could always be delays if you get stuck in customs, waiting on a ship to transport it or if your vehicle had some damage during shipping (repaired at VPC), etc.
- Build start (150) to build finish (155): 1-2 weeks.
- Build finish (155) to ready for transport (160): 1-7 days.
- Status 160 to 165 (On a ship to the US):1-6 weeks depending on ship schedules and when your build completed.
- Status 165 to 193 (at port in the US): 3-7 days depending on the port you onloaded and offloaded at.
- Status 193 to 195 (on a truck to the dealership): 3-7 days depending on dealership vicinity to port.
Production Plant to Veracruz/Altamira
All Mexico built BMWs are made in their San Luis Potosi plant (see screenshot).
After production the cars are put onto a train and take a ride to either Veracruz or Altamira.
Veracruz is the primary port, not just for BMWs but also other auto manufacturers and shipping, while Altamira, at least for now, is used as an overflow port once the quota of BMW vehicles at Veracruz is filled up. Once at Veracruz/Altamira, the cars sit in huge warehouses waiting for their ship. When it comes time to board the ship, specially trained drivers will drive the cars onto the ship, where they are tied down and secured. BMW ships on what are known as RORO carriers (Roll on/Roll off).
Here are satellite images of Veracruz and Altamira.
Veracruz:
Altamira:
A quick note about ship tracking. The above ports are for East Coast bound vehicles and both Veracruz and Altamira can see significant delays from time to time based on ship traffic, holidays etc. This can cause delays from a few days to a week, so factor that in when looking at ship schedules.
Determining Which Ship You're On
Up until now, you have been getting updates from BMW Genius that are generally within the last 24 hours accurate. But this is where the updates slow down and BMW Genius becomes largely useless. They do not know when your car has left the factory, when it got to the port or even which port it is going to. You just have to wait patiently in this phase of having very limited, to no information, outside of what you research using the below links. Also, you will not know your car is on a ship until about 2 days AFTER it's already been put onto a ship and left the dock. There are a few common carriers used by BMW:
- Wallenius Wilhelmsen
- Kline
- NYK
- Arc
- Sallaum Lines
Below are links to the various shipping companies BMW uses and their shipping schedules or search pages. Here you can play for hours, searching for possible ships your car will be on based upon the destination port and shipping date, etc. When researching ships going up the east coast of the US you typically want to look at ships that are going to stop at Brunswick, Baltimore and New York.
https://www.nykroro.com/customer/schedules/
https://www.walleniuswilhelmsen.com/schedules
https://www.arcshipping.com/ocean-se...Cother-service
https://www.kline.com/CarCarrier-Sch...g_Schedule.pdf
https://sallaumlines.com/schedules/us-to-west-africa/
About 2 days after you are on a ship that has left port, BMW Genius can provide you with the name of the ship and estimated date of arrival at your port of destination.
Once you know which ship you're on, you can use the links above to look up the ship schedule with the carrier.
Tracking the Ship
There are several sites you can use to track a ship by name, or look at port schedules. For "free" tracking, I found
http://www.marinetraffic.com/ and
http://www.vesselfinder.com/ to be the best. MarineTraffic tends to give you more updates per hours, while VesselFinder has a much better interface for looking at expected port arrivals or port schedules. Below are screenshots from both MarineTraffic and VesselFinder.
VesselFinder:
MarineTraffic:
Simply search for your ship on either site and you can get status updates so long as the ship is relatively close to land. Once the ship leaves the main areas near land and heads into the open ocean, it is only possible to track via satellite. For this, you can sign up for their subscriptions or pick one of the free trials the sites typically offer.
A few things to keep in mind:
- The estimated date of departure, or arrival, is very flexible and regularly changes. Use it as a rough estimate, not a concrete answer.
- Ships don't show up on the "Expected arrivals" tab until they are headed to that specific port. As an example, if a ship was going from Veracruz to Altamira to Brunswick, it won't show up on the expected arrivals for Brunswick until it has left Altamira and is on the way there.
Another good site to check out for possible arrivals/schedules is the 15 day vessel outlook for Brunswick
https://gaports.com/facilities/port-...ook-brunswick/ This website will show ships that are a couple of stops away and tends to update fairly regularly based on delays, traffic etc. But again, just like with the other ship schedules, don't trust this completely as it is flexible.
Note: The Baltimore port will drop off at Sparrows Point, where the BMW VPC is located. The same is true for the New York/New Jersey drop off, it drops the vehicles off at Port Bayonne.
Arrival and Processing at Port of Entry/US
Once your ship arrives with your car, specially trained drivers once again drive the cars off of the ship. They are then driven to a large parking lot for staging and processing through customs.
After clearing customs, the car will be at a staging parking lot/area. At this point as far as BMW knows, the car still is "shipping" and you won't get any update until AFTER your car gets to the VPC. Priority 1 cars (customer sold, US delivery) are bumped to the front of the line and processed first. It will usually take 2-4 days to get through the VPC. If you did ED, this process can take longer. Your car may be at customs longer before it shows up at the VPC.
Here is a screenshot showing processing through VPC. The car was offloaded on 10/3 but did not get through customs until 10/5. It was immediately brought to VPC 10/5 to start processing, but this isn't always the case. Then you can see 10/7 the final work was done and then released to carrier. Once the car shows as released to carrier, this means it is ready to be picked up by the carrier or is with the carrier. There isn't really much you can determine at this point, unless your carrier has a tracking system. You can only get the image below from your CA or BMW Genius, as this level of detail shows up nowhere on the MyGarage website.
While at the VPC they wash the car, inspect and repair any damage, and then get the car scheduled with a carrier who will deliver the car to the dealership, usually on a car carrier truck. If there is any extensive damage it will be reported to the dealership.
As an example, here is a satellite image of the VPC in Sparrow's Point at the Baltimore port.
Once your car is processed, it will be loaded onto a carrier. There are a few that BMW uses. BMW Genius will be able to tell you what carrier you are on and the estimated date of arrival to your dealer!
Congratulations, you made it through the slog of tracking and can now enjoy your new BMW!