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Tracking your Mk6 from Wolfsburg to North America

zee

Go Kart Champion
Sfpegasus on vwvortex made this guide. Thanks to him we can now obsessively monitor our factory orders. This process works for USA and Canada. I think the main Canadian port in the Halifax.

Please post up any question and I'll be happy to try to help. I'll keep updating this post with more information

Here’s what you need from your dealer as soon as your car gets into production - he’s the only one that can get this information because it’s a “sold” order. Ask him for the full list of eta dates.

Commnum VIN Status
8859XX WVWBM7AJ3AWXXXXXX Intransit From Factory

Order Entry 08/25/2009 Marked Sold Order 10/19/2009
Vehicle Assigned 10/12/2009
Release to Manuf. 10/01/2009
Release for Production 10/08/2009
Factory Inspected 11/05/2009
Ship Loaded 11/13/2009
Port Arrived 12/10/2009
Rel. to Carrier (Port) 12/21/2009
Dealer Delivered Week of 01/04/2010
Next update 12.10.09

Then go to http://www.pwl.de/8_2
The last schedule on the page should be VW logistics. Find a ship that is due in San Diego around your “port arrived” date and tie it back to a departure date that coincides with your “ship loaded” date. Mine tied together to the dates exactly. Find your ship name and Google it and look for a website called Marine Traffic. Let’s use BISHU HIGHWAY as an example.
The Marine Traffic website for this ship is http://www.marinetraffic.com/a...16000
Pay attention to the picture of you ship because that’s the only way you know what it looks like in the Panama Canal. Click on the latitude/longitude link and it will provide a map of the last available information of that ship - may or may not change daily, depending on tracking availability. It seems in the English Channel and North Sea there is a LOT of tracking available – not so much here. Feel free to stumble around their website – there’s a ton of cool information available - like San Diego Port information http://www.marinetraffic.com/a...d=217 for example. Click on the latitude/longitude link for a map.

Pay particular attention to the “destination” when the ship is in loading in Emden. They might go to Bremerhaven to pick up BMWs then head over here, sometimes they stop in England. During this time your should be able to find a “destination” of “Panama” and an ETA (if it’s going direct) on the Marine Traffic page or the next port if it’s doing the east coast run. You may have to follow your ship as it hop scotches down the east coast. Most every port has some sort of schedule and they’re pretty accurate.

VW uses Port of Davisville RI and Port of Bruswick GA as well as Houston and San Diego. Sometime they stop in Lázaro Cárdenas to pick up Jettas. (West coast of Mexico)

Don’t get discouraged if the ship disappears for awhile. (No tracking in the open ocean) I know, I know. It’s infuriating. Where’s the damn ship?

http://www.blg.de/en/blg-logis...obile/ Bremerhaven webcam

http://www.pancanal.com/eng/index.html Everything you ever wanted to know about the Panama Canal. Great learning experience. Webcam links at the bottom. Gatun = Caribbean, Miraflores = Pacific. Be patient - technology is a relatively new thing in Panama.

http://www.youtube.com/user/KrooozCams compresses 24 hours of video from Panama Canal webcams into 8 minutes – don’t worry about the dark hours – these ships have to transit the canal during daylight hours for safety. Look for videos 2-3 days (search/sort by date) before and after your ship is supposed go through to find it. Watch the Gatun locks for your ship in the morning and about 7 hours later it will pass through Miraflores locks.

http://www.sdmis.org/ Port of San Diego – ship schedules and webcams (24th street is VW logistics) http://www.sdmis.org/view/24thcam.php

http://www.sccoos.org/data/ais/fullpage.php Southern California Coastal Observing System AIS click on “start stream”. You need to know your MMSI number (from Marine Traffic) and click on the little ships for information.

http://www.portofhouston.com/m....html Port of Houston Hope this helps......
 

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rawcpoppa

Passed Driver's Ed
Good info in this thread but while I see links for tracking a VW to North America how would I go about tracking my Golf headed to Puerto Rico?? It's part of the US but the shipping schedule linked above seems to only have North American ports :(
 
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