Club Happenings – Spring 2019: 7th Annual BMW Vehicle Distribution Center (VDC) and BMW CCA Foundation Charity Event
by NJ BMW CCA
By Paul Ngai
We were extremely excited to attend our 7th annual visit to BMW NA’s New Jersey Vehicle Distribution Center (VDC) because we heard that BMW NA has decided to skip the New York International Auto Show this year. As you can imagine, the VDC event was sold out in a couple of weeks with a long waitlist.
For those who were fortunate enough to join us at this event, which was sponsored by BMW of Bridgewater, our 100 members were divided into 4 groups. Each were accompanied by a VDC tour guide. Background: The VDC is located in the port area in Jersey City and is staffed by over 100 BMW employees, not contractors (this is unique among BMW’s VDCs). It handles hundreds of BMWs and MINIs per trans-ocean shipment plus about several dozens of Rolls-Royces; all are destined to be delivered to anxiously waiting owners.
As part of the tour, we got to ride in a fleet of brand new BMW X7s where we were given a driving tour to the ship at a near-by dock where new vehicles were driven off the ship to get lined up for their next station. All new vehicles are scanned and then “dotted” with a colored tag indicating its delivery priority. Vehicles with an identified owner get the highest priority and are processed first.
After the drive from the ship, each vehicle is carefully washed and quality inspected to look for things like dents, scratches, and dust particles in the paint. Any defects is fixed, logged and communicated back to the factory.
The tour wouldn’t have been complete without listening to John Stavina’s talks on paint and body repair process. Mixing paint is like an art to John and his repair look better than the original factory paint.
Lunch was sponsored by BMW of Bridgewater (thank you Mike Yates, GM and his team). We also had a chance to learn about the BMW CCA Foundation by Scott Dishman (Executive Director of the BMW CCA Foundation) followed by a live and silent auction.
Thanks to everyone at the BMW VDC for their hospitality, BMW NA, BMW of Bridgewater, BMW CCA Foundation and to all of our members for their generous donations. We collected $5500 in donations at this event which will be presented to the BMW CCA Foundation later this year. Hope to see you again next year!
