04-17-2018, 10:27 AM | #23 |
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im in canada, had the car for about 8 weeks. got an email 3 weeks ago saying a welcome package is on its way but nothing has come yet. im not holding my breath.
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04-18-2018, 05:19 PM | #24 |
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Don't hold your breath. I waited over 8 months and even emailed BMW Canada, but nothing's come in yet. Go figure....
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04-18-2018, 05:33 PM | #25 | |
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05-19-2018, 04:15 PM | #26 | ||
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BMW Driving Schools
I didn't want to start yet another thread on this topic, so I'm responding to these posts, below, as well as to this thread: http://f87.bimmerpost.com/forums/sho....php?t=1485793
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I called the number and the woman I spoke with was obviously quite knowledgeable about the offerings, however after I spoke with her I'm not sure which if any of the options I'd be interested in. The first step, in any event, is to have your "eligibility" verified, which they do with your name and last 7 of the VIN number. This takes 2 business days, so they are going to call me back next week sometime. To summarize what I was told, none of the classes have any manual transmission cars available to drive; all are automatics. Just that one thing diminishes the appeal of these classes to me, all of them. If the "free day of driving school" is "utterly useless," as suggested above, then obviously I don't have any interest in that or in the 2 day version of the same thing. On the other hand, I'm not interested in tracking cars, and to me, a lot of what I enjoy about driving involves using a manual transmission. So, the idea of getting to drive a regular 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 series car with an automatic isn't exactly appealing, especially if the class is reminiscent of High School Driving classes :-) The M-school costs something like $700 as a one day upgrade from the "free offer" of driving school we received; the 2 day M-School is $3150 in total, out of pocket, applying the offer received as partial credit. This 2 day school includes hotel and meal costs, however just glancing at hotels in the Thermal, CA, area, hotel rates are pretty cheap. I have family in San Diego, so were I to do any of these schools, I'd combine the trip with a family visit, before or afterwards. Perhaps someone who has actually done one or another of these various BMW driving school/M-school offerings could comment on their experiences, and whether or not someone with my attitudes, expressed above, would find the whole thing worth doing, from a time and cost perspective? Thanks.
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05-19-2018, 05:07 PM | #28 |
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I got the usb stick awhile ago, and the offer for the one day car control event. I have an HPDE at road Atlanta under my belt but I'm still a noob, since that was over a year and a half ago. I might do this, because I liked the instructors at the performance center.
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05-19-2018, 05:49 PM | #29 |
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Having autocrossed and raced in SCCA for many years, the BMW offerings held no interest for me. However, if you’re not a racer and just want to improve your driving skills, learn more about the limits of your car and get neck deep in everything that’s BMW, take a serious look at the BMW offerings.
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05-19-2018, 06:39 PM | #30 | ||
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05-21-2018, 07:48 PM | #31 |
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The class that's being offered (valued at $849), I believe, is the car control class and not the one-day M school.
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05-21-2018, 08:53 PM | #32 |
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Included are breathing exercises and yoga positions, to teach you how to tolerate the ASD :-)
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05-22-2018, 03:41 PM | #36 | |
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The day starts with arriving at 8:30 where they have coffee and such, then some time in classroom describing some high performance driving basics (e.g. braking for a turn, turning into the apex, the physics of weight shifting with braking or accelerating, tire contact patch, etc). At this time they also divide you into three groups. In our case it was one group of 5 and two groups of 4. The class time is also the time during which you are waiting for anyone getting a performance center delivery to finish up. For the time on the asphalt, they direct each group to get in one of the groups of cars. There is basically a group of M4's, M3's and M2's (as would be expected, all are auto). Each group does a specific activity set up for that car, so after you're done with one activity, you drive back and switch to a different car for the next activity. One thing that surprised me with the activities is that, aside from the one on the skid pad, you are in the car on your own with a radio in the door pocket for the instructor to tell you what to do. No helmets. Since it was wet, the windows were also closed. So that's a bit different than going to an HPDE as a beginner. The pre-lunch trio of activities were: A short loop on one track mainly focused on hard braking into a few left hand turns. Each turn is set up with braking cones, a turn cone, apex cone, and exit cone. Fairly standard stuff there. We used the M4 for this. A control track with a start through slalom cones followed by a bit of a right and left section of track. We used the M2 for this. A skid pad (which normally would be hosed down, but that was not needed the day I was there). It starts with basically driving at 35 following a line they have in the circle. Then accelerate while following the line until you lose traction, then recover. If you get the hang of that well enough, they will get into drifting with you. I'm sorry to say that it took me a little while to get the hang of this, so I didn't quite make it to the drifting part. We used the M3 for this. Then you break for lunch, followed by a little more time in the classroom as they talk about what you'll do next. The post-lunch events were: Return to the control track for timed laps. The track is mostly set up the same way, except now instead of continuing through so you can do laps, you do a single lap ending in a box of cones you are supposed to stop in. You get docked 2 seconds for taking out a cone or for not stopping in the box. I got a little aggressive with my first lap doing this and ended up spinning out (and off the track a little). I did OK the next few laps. Didn't get a top time, but didn't get the worst time. We did this in the M2's. Go to an area they have set up with an oval of cones to do chase laps. Basically two cars line up on opposite sides of the flat sides of the oval. On go you drive around until you hit 7 laps, one car spins out, or you get within 2 cars lengths of the car ahead of you. The parking lot is slightly off camber so when you round one side of the oval your turning on a left slope, but on the other side a right slope. I managed to keep it in control on this one and won all my laps, which was cool. We did this in the M3's. The final activity was basically opening up that first short track we did in the M4's. This time there was a long straight for you go get some speed on, followed by a left turn on to the skid pad where you had to follow that about 270 degrees, then back on the track with a few more gradual and tight turns. It worked out well that this was our groups last activity since it was a nice way to end things. They do offer to take groups out on the full track with one of the instructors driving after that as well (which I did). They wrap things up by announcing the "winners" of the timed runs on the control course and the chase runs plus giving out the gift bag. One thing I'll mention that they don't really talk about in the FAQ for the courses. If you have any issues with motion sickness, it's a good idea to come prepared. They don't have Dramamine there to give people. There was one guy at the class (in our group) that had some issues that led to his maybe trying one or two laps on any activity after which he ended up sitting it out. Another could only ride in the front seat when you were a passenger with the instructor showing you the track. At the end of the day, I really enjoyed it. The instructors were cool. The cars being automatic is unfortunate, but it was interesting getting the feel for paddle shifters since I've only ever done a test drive with those on a car. I'm not ready to ditch the manual, though. In a way I'm also glad it was wet out there since it was good to get a feel for how well the cars did with hard braking and turns with a slick track. |
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05-22-2018, 03:45 PM | #37 | ||
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