Hi folks, The lease is coming up on my 2014 435xi coupe and I'm looking to purchase a new 440xi coupe LCI refresh. I'd really like to get some custom options on an individual order and frankly the two dealerships I've talked to in the Seattle area don't seem to be knowledgeable or interested in helping me with a custom order (yeah, I get it, they want to sell what they have). My wish list includes Fire Orange paint, the black M4 wheels style 437, carbon fiber interior trim, and matching stitching on the seats. I have a bunch of questions on this, but, here is my top question...For the $5000 they are going to charge for the individual color, given that is a flat fee for the handling of a special SKU for BMW, does that fee cover some of these other items or are they going to tack on more $$$ for each touch point. For example, does this include modifying some of the interior options? If they are going to charge on top of that for some of this, I may just look at aftermarket for things like carbon dash inserts. Also, would love to hear any other advice you may have if you ordered something custom. Cheers, Jeff
I don't know for sure but having just gone through this on some simple options, I would guess that the pricing is just for the paint. Obviously, this is something to suit your tastes but for me it was a question of getting a special color relative to the cost of the entire vehicle. You are correct, dealers are not really well suited to get into the customization end. When I did get the pricing on the color change, I just couldn't justify it. You might want to contact the BMWGenius people through the BMW NA website. I have found them to be very helpful. I can't tell you how helpful. They did a lot of handholding and were just great to deal with. They just notified me that my car finally got on a boat, the name of the boat so I can watch it on one of the vessel tracking sites, and the estimated date that it will be in Cali. They were great when asking questions about what was possible in custom colors, what it did to the price, and what it would do to delivery. The last one is something I wouldn't underestimate. Staying in the factory option book wound up with a long delivery with likely a couple of months more to go. I would expect real customization to add a couple of months to the build sequence. Ugh. Good luck. Ron
