[JW-M340i]

Mine finally moved from Final Assembly (May30-July1) to Ready for Transport. Got a call from the SA today, that it's been cleared from the Stop Sale, fingers crossed it now only waiting for a ship.

[G42 Pilot]

Originally Posted by Lappy

I dunno mine is stuck in finally assembly. If you run the Vin it says 6/20 production date. Not a part of any stop sales or recalls or part shortages from the various people I asked.

I believe final assembly is when the body is married with the drivetrain, engine, axles and exhaust. So if the strut tower is defective then your car will sit until a good part is received. Stop Sale might be used after a car is assembled. Just assuming.

[T_U_D]

Originally Posted by G42 Pilot

I believe final assembly is when the body is married with the drivetrain, engine, axles and exhaust. So if the strut tower is defective then your car will sit until a good part is received. Stop Sale might be used after a car is assembled. Just assuming.

The marriage happens early on in the assembly process.

[M_Power Rob]

Originally Posted by G42 Pilot

I believe final assembly is when the body is married with the drivetrain, engine, axles and exhaust. So if the strut tower is defective then your car will sit until a good part is received. Stop Sale might be used after a car is assembled. Just assuming.

You know what happens when you assume...

[Jayymora]

Update: I was informed that BMW is sending a team from Mexico to get this issue resolved at VDC. It’s a 1-2 hour job to get it resolved and just waiting on parts. No more information was shared. Hopefully this helps everyone with a the port.

[T_U_D]

Originally Posted by Jayymora

Update: I was informed that BMW is sending a team from Mexico to get this issue resolved at VDC. It’s a 1-2 hour job to get it resolved and just waiting on parts. No more information was shared. Hopefully this helps everyone with a the port.

Apologies in advance, but I think we should take this with a grain of salt. The first hole in the story is the “sending a team from Mexico.”

[G42 Pilot]

Originally Posted by Jayymora

Update: I was informed that BMW is sending a team from Mexico to get this issue resolved at VDC. It’s a 1-2 hour job to get it resolved and just waiting on parts. No more information was shared. Hopefully this helps everyone with a the port.

I mentioned this to a colleague of mine who was an AMG sales expert at a dealership for over 40 years, had many contacts at MB AG in Germany, was at MB plants many times and knew many engineers.
He said it is quite possible that BMW would do this and would not be surprised if they did. It made sense to him.

Lets think about this for a second.
BMW VDC's use Amports to process their cars. So now we have many cars with this issue sitting at the VDC. With labor costs in mind, it is quite possible that Amports just does not have the manpower or even maybe the expertise to do this work.
So where are the guys and gals that know these models, who deal with them on a daily basis? The factory, which is in Mexico.
It does make sense to set up a team to just work on these cars.
I would suspect the parts are coming from Europe via air freight to LAX then driven up the coast to Oxnard.
This of course is all speculation but sure makes sense.

[T_U_D]

BMW is not going to send engineers nor tech support from SLP, Mexico. Plant SLP is simply a manufacturing/assembly facility. R&D is via BMW AG. In order to promptly rectify the matter it is highly probable that individuals will come from Germany and/or from NA. There are multiple VPCs within the U.S. so uncertain as to why you have solely selected Oxnard?

Edit, the amount of field engineers within North American to handle this matter is more than adequate.

[~Barn~]

Outright dismissing even the possibility that technicians from the site where the models are built, might be sent out to location(s) where there are said models in need of diagnosis and repair, seems somewhat near sighted. I personally find it plausible.

But regardless... "grain of salt", "speculation", "conjecture" whatever you want to call it, BMW is undoubtedly balancing efficiency, effectiveness, and cost in how they get this addressed. Just my .02.

[M2siast]

Originally Posted by ~Barn~

Outright dismissing even the possibility that technicians from the site where the models are built, might be sent out to location(s) where there are said models in need of diagnosis and repair, seems somewhat near sighted. I personally find it plausible.

But regardless... "grain of salt", "speculation", "conjecture" whatever you want to call it, BMW is undoubtedly balancing efficiency, effectiveness, and cost in how they get this addressed. Just my .02.

I think it’s extremely safe to assume no techs will be coming from Mexico because of expertise. Car is just assembled there, it wasn’t developed there.

Now, if we’re talking manpower and rate cost, it becomes very plausible.

[T_U_D]

Originally Posted by M2siast

I think it’s extremely safe to assume no techs will be coming from Mexico because of expertise. Car is just assembled there, it wasn’t developed there.

Exactly.

[~Barn~]

Okay, touché... I get all that, and it's certainly a possibility that they'll send the original developers and architects of the model to address the issue, or people of similar ilk. My only point is that even though "it's only assembled there", there are very likely high-Cert. SMEs that also hold post in that SLP plant. It's not a one-of-many facility from what I understand, the entire model line is built there. Suffices to say they're probably not staffing the place with only "Sector 7G" lever pullers.

But yeah... I'll concede the point that if the problem is dire enough and it's determined a fundamental flaw exists that needs the design engineers to triage it, they'll dispatch 'em. In my book that would seem unlikely but I don't know how bad this problem is; I don't think any of us do.

That said, for anybody who has a car held up because of this problem, methinks you'll be wanting to root against that scenario.

[M_Power Rob]

Originally Posted by ~Barn~

Okay, touché... I get all that, and it's certainly a possibility that they'll send the original developers and architects of the model to address the issue, or people of similar ilk. My only point is that even though "it's only assembled there", there are very likely high-Cert. SMEs that also hold post in that SLP plant. It's not a one-of-many facility from what I understand, the entire model line is built there. Suffices to say they're probably not staffing the place with only "Sector 7G" lever pullers.

But yeah... I'll concede the point that if the problem is dire enough and it's determined a fundamental flaw exists that needs the design engineers to triage it, they'll dispatch 'em. In my book that would seem unlikely but I don't know how bad this problem is; I don't think any of us do.

That said, for anybody who has a car held up because of this problem, methinks you'll be wanting to root against that scenario.

A little mellow dramatic there. If it was a design flaw, it would not be as limited as it is. There would be an extreme sense of urgency, almost a panic, based on cars in production and curs already in owner's hands and on the street. You think AG would really be putting hundreds and hundreds of people at risk?

If I had to guess, the issue is from a bad batch of parts (again, just a guess on my part, not a statement of any proven facts).

[T_U_D]

Something we need to keep in mind, the sheet metal for SLP is stamped via a third party. Therefore the strut tower issue is theoretically a supplier problem.

In my opinion if the issue with the strut tower is severe enough one would suspect that it would require replacement which would equal the previously mentioned $h!t show as the process is heavily involved.

Originally Posted by M_Power Rob

If I had to guess, the issue is from a bad batch of parts (again, just a guess on my part, not a statement of any proven facts).

Agreed.

[~Barn~]

Originally Posted by M_Power Rob

A little mellow dramatic there. If it was a design flaw, it would not be as limited as it is. There would be an extreme sense of urgency, almost a panic, based on cars in production and curs already in owner's hands and on the street. You think AG would really be putting hundreds and hundreds of people at risk?

If I had to guess, the issue is from a bad batch of parts (again, just a guess on my part, not a statement of any proven facts).

Agreed. And that's precisely my point.

The OPs initial proposal (i.e. "what the BMW told them") was that SMEs from the place where the car is actually built, were being sent to go figure out what the deal is at the VDC(s) [EDIT: VPC(s)] with this limited scope strut problem and fix it. Bad parts? Misbehaving assembly robots? The metric system? Whatever.

Maybe it was bad dope, or maybe it was the truth. Who knows? Hopefully sometime here soon, the root cause will be made public (?).

[T_U_D]

FYI, it is VPC. It always has been. No clue where VDC has come from? Edit, even internally.

[KPACABA]

Originally Posted by G42 Pilot

My work order is dated on the 23rd as well.
I sure hope that the work doesn't entail replacing the strut tower.
That means unibody surgery, extensive work and it will never be right.
I'm not sure what the procedure is now but it used to be if the repair cost
is more than 3% of the cars value the dealer is notified of repair work done
on the car and if the dealer has ethics the purchaser is notified.
If it does then BMW NA can build me a new car.

Fully agree that if the strut tower itself will need to be redone, it will be a major effort. I was told by GENIUS agent today that my 330i is en route to the VPC at Baltimore and that a repair work order for the front left strut tower issue will be created. The agent did not have any additional info on what the actual problem is. Has anyone heard of anything additional other than the "front left strut tower" issue?

[Squidget]

Originally Posted by T_U_D

FYI, it is VPC. It always has been. No clue where VDC has come from? Edit, even internally.

No idea, but I've seen even CAs make that error, so I assume it came from some formal document somewhere.

[~Barn~]

I think for me, it probably just came from the assumed/wrong mnemonic: Vehicle Distribution Center.

[T_U_D]

Whatever is involved with this repair will not be an easy one. One would suspect that it is fairly involved and it might be best for BMW to scrap the cars instead of passing them along to customers?

[Scottydont1414]

Originally Posted by T_U_D

Whatever is involved with this repair will not be an easy one. One would suspect that it is fairly involved and it might be best for BMW to scrap the cars instead of passing them along to customers?

My CA said they are expecting a memo with direction for the car sometime today. Hopefully true.

I don’t think many others actually made it all the way to the dealership before getting stopped?

[Sethhboii]

All I know is that I’ve been in Final assembly since Monday and am a tad suspicious if my car is affected but honestly take all the time and get it fixed so I don’t have to worry about it when I get the car.