Click here to access the new site.

BMW CCA 2.0 is live. To visit the site, click here.

Bill Howard, BMW CCA
Feb. 21, 2008

BMWCCA.org 2.0 is live. The revamped BMW Car Club of America website adds more content, more forums, and a gallery for photos. Other than the News section created by BMWCCA.org writers and photographs, responsibility for the vibrancy and popularity of the site belongs to BMW CCA’s 75,000 members who contribute material. Here’s a quick guide to the site.

Be sure to join the site by filling out a brief form and choosing a username and password. Do this even if you have a username from the old site, since old logons don’t carry over. BMW CCA members should link their member numbers and names for fullest site access (electronic Roundel, tech guru answers, free classifieds). Your member number is on the wrapper of Roundel, your chapter newsletter, your membership card, or available through the club office, 864-250-0022.

The main sections of the site are striped across the site header (where it says BMW Car Club of America: You Belong Here): Home page, News, Events (calendar), Forums, Reviews, Gallery (photos, videos), Marketplace (classified, club regalia), and Chapters.

Users, editors both post reviews
Anyone can post a product Review, not just website staff. Same goes for the Gallery. You’ll find both staff-generated reviews as well as member reviews of products you’ve worked with. Check out Jonathan Spira’s excellent reviews of more than two dozen Bluetooth cellphones; it’s the most extensive compatibility testing you’ll find anywhere.

If you’ve been dying to have us or Roundel photograph your project car, now you can do it yourself. We expect Gallery will be one of the site’s most popular sections.

Wide range of forums
In Forums, you can ask technical questions and get expert answers from club tech gurus as well as other members. The Tech Talk forums cover topics that cross model lines (service, wheels & tires, audio-video-electronics) while Model Discussions forums let you dive deep with your favorite model. We’ve also got sections for BMW Competition and General forums, including Off Topic, where you can sound off on anything: Porsches, Obama, great vacations, or teen driving. If you’ve got comments on the site, go to Feedback. Please: Tell us what you think.

Marketplace hosts classifieds
Marketplace is where you’ll find BMW CCA classifieds. Submit ads here that appear both online and in Roundel magazine (free for BMW CCA members). With the new site, we’ve made several improvements: Online ad posts can have up to five photos per ad (Roundel still accepts one photo per ad, for a fee). We’ve reduced the cost of ads for non-members to $5 an ad for online (but there are still plenty of benefits that make membership a great deal); if it makes a difference, you can easily skim ads to see who’s a club member.

Classifieds: Submit ads on new site starting Feb. 27
Classified ad posters please note: Ads do not carry over from the old website. So you’ll need to resubmit your ads to the new site starting Wednesday, Feb. 27, the day after the classified ad close for the April issue of Roundel. The deadline remains 5 p.m. the 26th of each month for the Roundel issue that appears five weeks later (March 26 for the May issue, for instance).

Chapters information provides a list of chapters, chapter contacts, and information and forms for chapter officers.

Electronic edition of Roundel
Click on the Roundel magazine tab and you’ll find something new: electronic editions of current and recent past issues of the magazine. You’ll need to be a BMW CCA member to gain access.

If anything on the site doesn’t work quite the way you expect, try it a second time. If you can’t find it, use the Search button. Our forum and reviews sections are based on the popular vBulletin, while the photo gallery uses PhotoPost, so it may all be familiar already. If you simply can’t log on or work through a problem, call the BMW CCA National Office at 864-250-0022 and we’ll help you out, 8:30-5:30 (EST weekdays). After hours, send a note to Editor Bill Howard e-mail Bill Howard or Webmaster Jeff Petzel and we’ll see if we can help you.

Through Feb. 26, you can access the new site through the existing site, or by bookmarking the new site at its temporary address (http://stage.bmwcca.org), then Feb. 27 the new site will use the www.bmwcca.org address.