Let's try to clear up the confusion on Saddle Brown in the US

[rodybmw]

Originally Posted by chris'sX5

Although I bought my X5 in Germany, they are all made in the same factory in the US. I took over an open order early August and opted for the Saddle Brown (the original had been ordered in black). The car was built late September and I got it last week. There didn't seem to be any delay caused by the choice. I actually even got the car one week before the date originally set when I signed.

Seeing that it is the same factory and supply chain: Dont expect any delay due to the Saddle Brown. Irrespective of where you are. (Unless your other option is to buy a unit that is standing on some dealers show room floor already)

Is yours a German model or US model. The delay, if the information in brian's post is correct, it would only apply to US model E70's with SB interior.

And it looks just GREAT ! Yes the rear of the seats are black. But that just makes it more stylish. And if it had been all SB, it would have been too much and would have spoiled it....

I agree with both your points here. I have Auburn on my 545. It is a very similar color to Saddle Brown and also has black as the secondary color. I like the two tone look and the contrast,.......if it were all Auburn it would be way too much (too loud).

[rodybmw]

Originally Posted by proveg

You CAN get saddle brown in US, but your dealer has to really want to help you. If they make enough calls and talk to appropriate people, it CAN be ordered without any extra charge.
Sorry, cant be more descriptive on how he has done it, as I feel that my dealer done enough and I should not bug him any more after calling and driving in for over a month about my interior request.

So your car has been ordered and confirmed with Saddle Brown? If so, congratulations. I did see your posts about trying to get SB, but did not know that they finally got it for you. If BMW NA has confirmed your order with SB then that makes one US car w/ SB that we know of that has already been delivered, and one accepted/confirmed order from BMW NA.

[brian5]

Originally Posted by rodybmw

<<snip>>Yet in some other threads there have been posts by members that imply different things. Member brian5 has said that as far as he knows SB has "limited availability" and can be ordered but will delay the car's production. Then member Investor responded to him by saying "It doesn't delay your order".

So.....brian5, Investor, or anyone else for that matter, if you know anything more about this please respond in this thread with more details.

brian5......can you find out from your dealer (who I presume was the person who told you that SB is "available on a limited basis" exactly what he means and how does one go about ordering one. Assuming he was correct about the availability of SB on a limited basis I would assume that he would know how to process that order or who to contact at BMW NA to get it done. Would he be willing to provide that info to you so that you can share it with the rest of us. We are all spread out around the country and can't all buy our E70's from him, so if he can share the knowledge many of us would greatly appreciate it.
<<snip>> Again, if anyone has more info on ordering SB please share it in this thread from now on so that all the info is in the same thread instead of being buried in multiple threads.

Thanks in advance to all who participate....

When I went to my CT dealer to place my order on Oct 8th, they did not know anything abotu the SB option and questioned that that option was available. I got my dealer to do a search on ordered X5's and they actually found at least one that had been ordered with SB option. They showed it to me in the BMW ordering system. They then became believers. They looked into it a bit more for me, and came back with the response that the SB was in limited supply and will probably delay my order if I wanted it. At that stage, I'd already changed my mind from White/Saddle Brown to Grey/Black so they had no reason to "give me a story". That's all I know. I can't confirm that it is actually had "limited availability" but I can confirm that were order/s in the BMW system with that option.

[rodybmw]

Originally Posted by brian5

When I went to my CT dealer to place my order on Oct 8th, they did not know anything abotu the SB option and questioned that that option was available. I got my dealer to do a search on ordered X5's and they actually found at least one that had been ordered with SB option. They showed it to me in the BMW ordering system. They then became believers. They looked into it a bit more for me, and came back with the response that the SB was in limited supply and will probably delay my order if I wanted it. At that stage, I'd already changed my mind from White/Saddle Brown to Grey/Black so they had no reason to "give me a story". That's all I know. I can't confirm that it is actually had "limited availability" but I can confirm that were order/s in the BMW system with that option.

Thanks for the info brian.....I didn't consider having my dealer do a search on ordered X5's w/ SB in the BMW system because I assumed that there wouldn't be any. But since there was one that you saw, plus the fact that Proveg's car should be in the system with the rest of the ordered cars should be good evidence that it can be done.

[Billy3333]

Robybmw , you're rite, BMW's net system that the dealers use does not have any selection for Saddle Brown. But All u have to do, just ask your salesman call BMW NA ask for modify X5 Prod # ******* to a special interior color Saddle brown/ black code # LUD3. Remember , SB is a conflict with the ZAV package.

[proveg]

Here is my Order confirmation from Owners Circle site, Scheduled for production on second week of November... Cant wait!

Originally Posted by rodybmw

Thanks for the info brian.....I didn't consider having my dealer do a search on ordered X5's w/ SB in the BMW system because I assumed that there wouldn't be any. But since there was one that you saw, plus the fact that Proveg's car should be in the system with the rest of the ordered cars should be good evidence that it can be done.

[marcx5]

can i order beige but with an all black dashboard? or is that too 'special' a request?

[rodybmw]

Originally Posted by Billy3333

Robybmw , you're rite, BMW's net system that the dealers use does not have any selection for Saddle Brown. But All u have to do, just ask your salesman call BMW NA ask for modify X5 Prod # ******* to a special interior color Saddle brown/ black code # LUD3. Remember , SB is a conflict with the ZAV package.

Thanks Billy........I wouldn't be getting ZAV anyways.
Hopefully calling BMW NA and asking them to change to LUD3 would do the trick. The reason that I don't have much faith in that process is that I've tried that with all the BMW's that I have purchased in the past 15 years and only once did BMW NA give me what I asked for.....which was a non-US cloth interior on a 1997 528i. All other times they have denied what I asked for.....the last time being when I ordered my E60 545. I asked my salesman to give BMW NA the code for Truffle Brown, which was a standard E60 interior color on non-US E60's, but as with most of my previous experiences with them BMW NA denied my request for that color. Back in 1994 it took almost 6 months of going back and forth with letters and phone calls to convince BMW NA to let me order an E36 M3 in a European exterior color. Finally after about 6 months they agreed to do it for an additional $1300 which I agreed to, but then they backed out the very next day and I ended up getting a standard Alpine White M3.

So needless to say I don't have much positive experience with BMW NA accepting my special requests. That's why I want to collect as much hard (printed) evidence that I can get on others ordering SB so that neither the dealer nor BMW NA can deny the possibility of ordering SB for US cars.

[rodybmw]

I went to my dealer yesterday and asked my CA to do a search on ordered X5's to see if there are any with Saddle Brown on order. He went to the "Vehicle Locator" page on his system and interesting enough the list of interior colors available for the search purposes had Saddle Brown listed in it, even though on the "Order" page there is still no SB listed. He did a search on X5 3.0si's with SB and four of them came up with the following color combos:

-Black Sapphire/Saddle Brown
-Space Gray/Saddle Brown
-Alpine White/Saddle Brown
-Monaco Blue/Saddle Brown

So as of yesterday there were at least 4 X5's with Saddle Brown interior on order (we did not check and 4.8i's). Some of those must belong to some members here.

I wanted to thank everyone who responded to this thread with the info they had. So as of now it seems like you can get Saddle Brown interior on your US X5, but you have to place an order using any of the other interior colors first, and then have the dealer call BMW NA and ask them to do a manual change on the order to Saddle Brown.

[elvism]

.. how u doing!!!!!!