New BMW's getting stolen using blank BMW keys

[t8cmf]

r999 said:

Agreed, which is why I disabled my OBD port some time ago, and took other measures besides. My risk is now reduced to a broken window, or perhaps (as the Autocar story illustrates) a large hole cut out of the wing in front of the driver's door. Nevertheless, I'd prefer to see BMW share some of the pain and cost. They may very well tough it out, as you say, but I dislike it when the police and Thatcham make it easier for them to do so.

Yeah, totally agree that the Police and Thatcham have effectively given BMW even more "wriggle room" with their findings.

[t8cmf]

Tyrewrecker said:

Could someone please clarify something for my small mind.

How are they mainly getting into the vehicles? Setting jammers to stop them being locked or is there some other fault with the alarm system?

There is a well known blind spot in the interior of the affected BMW's that means the alarm sensors can't pick up the window being smashed right next to the wing mirror. This seems to be the most exploited of the methods we have seen so far although a lot of people do report there being no sign of glass in the vicinity of their car being stolen. Who knows?!?

[Tyrewrecker]

t8cmf said:

There is a well known blind spot in the interior of the affected BMW's that means the alarm sensors can't pick up the window being smashed right next to the wing mirror. This seems to be the most exploited of the methods we have seen so far although a lot of people do report there being no sign of glass in the vicinity of their car being stolen. Who knows?!?

No idea
You are the BMW thief AICM5P

[neiljohnson]

To code a vauxhall key you need the vehicle pass code (a 4 digit code) surly it would be fairly straight forward for BMW to do something similar

[t8cmf]

Tyrewrecker said:

No idea
You are the BMW thief AICM5P

I am far too intelligent to be a car thief. Any monkey can be taught to steal cars.

I assume you haven't read all the thread. The blind spot is well documented.

[Tyrewrecker]

t8cmf said:

I am far too intelligent to be a car thief. Any monkey can be taught to steal cars.

I assume you haven't read all the thread. The blind spot is well documented.

I just wanted to clarify how they were doing it.

[t8cmf]

Tyrewrecker said:

I just wanted to clarify how they were doing it.

No worries

[Pesty]

WeirdNeville said:

r999 said:

Sunday Times article contains disappointing news. The joint investigation by police and Thatcham, begun three months ago, has apparently concluded there is 'no simple answer'. In plain English that means nothing is going to get done. A policeman at the centre of the affair is quoted as saying he would like to see a return to traditional keys. Thanks, Mr Plod: and what about those of us who would like to keep the cars we've already got?

Note some important points:
Thatcham and the police investigate: No mention of BMW
Those two bodies conclude: No simple answer - From their point of view.

Nothing is going to get done? No, not without BMW it's not.

What do you expect police to do? Head out and start re-coding CAS modules or fiting complex secondary immobilisers off their own back?

The problem with the policeman saying they would like to go back to tradition keys misses the point by a country mile.


The problem is not the codeable keys the problem is BMW not protecting the OBD port/having areas the alarm does not cover.

If the policeman had named BMWs as easy to steal you can bet your arse they would fix the problem

Edited by Pesty on Sunday 29th July 19:35

[aeropilot]

Pesty said:

WeirdNeville said:

r999 said:

Sunday Times article contains disappointing news. The joint investigation by police and Thatcham, begun three months ago, has apparently concluded there is 'no simple answer'. In plain English that means nothing is going to get done. A policeman at the centre of the affair is quoted as saying he would like to see a return to traditional keys. Thanks, Mr Plod: and what about those of us who would like to keep the cars we've already got?

Note some important points:
Thatcham and the police investigate: No mention of BMW
Those two bodies conclude: No simple answer - From their point of view.

Nothing is going to get done? No, not without BMW it's not.

What do you expect police to do? Head out and start re-coding CAS modules or fiting complex secondary immobilisers off their own back?

The problem with the policeman saying they would like to go back to tradition keys misses the point by a country mile.


The problem is not the codeable keys the problem is BMW not protecting the OBD port/having areas the alarm does not cover.

If the policeman had named BMWs as easy to steal you can bet your arse they would fix the problem

Edited by Pesty on Sunday 29th July 19:35

This.

Perhaps with a statement that the Police are considering not buying any more BMW's until BMW fix the issue..... might have been a useful prod in BMW's direction.

[InfoRetrieval]

r999 said:

Sunday Times article contains disappointing news. The joint investigation by police and Thatcham, begun three months ago, has apparently concluded there is 'no simple answer'. In plain English that means nothing is going to get done. A policeman at the centre of the affair is quoted as saying he would like to see a return to traditional keys. Thanks, Mr Plod: and what about those of us who would like to keep the cars we've already got?

The Sunday Times article was very poor. It implied that the root of the problem was car manufacturers being "forced" to fit OBD ports to the cars by the EU. (It's not - having a semi-standardised diagnostic port fitted to cars is a good idea.) The problem is BMW having a poor security protocol behind the OBD port that allows key programming without some authentication by the owner.

[contracttor]

...and a deaf, dumb and blind alarm

[camshafted]

When I wrote the original story which went into the nationals I put a Freedom of Information request with all of the UK's police forces to find out the total number of cars stolen and the total number of BMWs stolen for the past three years.

The figures have been coming back to me in recent weeks and as the story has resurfaced in Autocar and The Sunday Times I thought I'd give a few figures.

I took figures for the whole of 2010 and 2011 and the first six months of 2012 so by doubling the 2012 figures you can get a basic insight into the situation.

Generally speaking, theft of vehicles in the UK are down this year. But, as you can gather anecdotally from the Pistonheads forums, there has been an alarming number of thefts within the Met and Midlands.

E.g. In the Met:

Year, total thefts, BMWs stolen
2010, 31803, 1713
2011, 31673, 2254
2012, 13582, 1324

Proportionately, 2012 is on for 27,000 total thefts (down YoY)with 2648 BMWs stolen (up).

West Midlands Police say 314 BMWs have been up until the end of June - compared to 258 nicked in the whole of 2011.

I've not got time to collate all the figures in one page but if you have any queries on the area you live in I will try to be of assistance.

[camshafted]

For Surrey:

Here are the Surrey figures:

Year, total thefts, BMWs stolen
2010, 1084, 39
2011, 972, 33
2012, 409, 28

[Steffan]

camshafted said:

When I wrote the original story which went into the nationals I put a Freedom of Information request with all of the UK's police forces to find out the total number of cars stolen and the total number of BMWs stolen for the past three years.

The figures have been coming back to me in recent weeks and as the story has resurfaced in Autocar and The Sunday Times I thought I'd give a few figures.

I took figures for the whole of 2010 and 2011 and the first six months of 2012 so by doubling the 2012 figures you can get a basic insight into the situation.

Generally speaking, theft of vehicles in the UK are down this year. But, as you can gather anecdotally from the Pistonheads forums, there has been an alarming number of thefts within the Met and Midlands.

E.g. In the Met:

Year, total thefts, BMWs stolen
2010, 31803, 1713
2011, 31673, 2254
2012, 13582, 1324

Proportionately, 2012 is on for 27,000 total thefts (down YoY)with 2648 BMWs stolen (up).

West Midlands Police say 314 BMWs have been up until the end of June - compared to 258 nicked in the whole of 2011.

I've not got time to collate all the figures in one page but if you have any queries on the area you live in I will try to be of assistance.

Discussed this today with my local garage (group of three) in Birmingham, who are sorting out the throttle bodies on my latest daft purchase. Interestingly they quoted exactly the same statistic on BMW's nicked in the WM being 34 to date this year.

The garage confirmed BMW were not admitting anything in this but are refusing to admit all responsibility and maintaining the same line to the trade that they have in replies to owners reproduced on here. Which is that the BMW cars all comply with all current security requirements. End of story.

The garage commented that BMW had no intention of admitting, recognising or accepting any responsibility or liability, BMW regard this as an industry problem and are awaiting on Thatchem and other experts to report on the industry problem and suggest changes which will be incorporated in new cars.

I have written as some length because that has become my assessment of the approach of BMW on this subject, for some time based upon the absolute refusal to admit to anything. Unfortunately this does seem to be working.

I think it shows a callous disregard for the owners of the stolen cars and I do not like the consequences of inadequate security on new BMW's but clearly it would seem BMW have no intention of changing anything.

Which leaves BMW buyers very exposed. Unless someone can get this onto a serious media base identifying the reality of BMW's being very high risk in this respect, I can see no progress for the owners whose cars have gone missing, or defence for the owners whose cars are still at risk.

[Digger]

Has anyone followed up with the poster on here who mentioned a mate whose 1M's firmware was updated to (allegedly) 'resolve' this issue?

[aeropilot]

Digger said:

Has anyone followed up with the poster on here who mentioned a mate whose 1M's firmware was updated to (allegedly) 'resolve' this issue?

Well, I've used a friend of a friend contact to enquire (senior tech at a large BMW dealer chain) last week to find out about this, as dealer has been next to useless (surprise, surprise) and the response was that he wasn't aware of any 'fix' for this via a firmware update.

Would like him to be proven wrong on this though

[B10BRW]

t8cmf said:

Personally, I decided to be proactive in this issue and buy a 3m OBD II extension cable to relocate my OBD port whilst fitting a dummy OBD port ordered form Germany. The total cost for parts was £20 as I did the work myself. It's very easy.

Can you please tell me where you obtained the cable and dummy OBD port from.
I will have do the same as you, as BMW are Fg useless.

[t8cmf]

B10BRW said:

Can you please tell me where you obtained the cable and dummy OBD port from.
I will have do the same as you, as BMW are Fg useless.

Happy to help.

Firstly, I don't know what variant of BMW you have so I'll tell you what I did (E92 M3) and you will have to find your particular version if it's not an E92.

The cable you will need is in the link below (the same cable is available on eBay also). Get the 3m length as it will give a whole host of possible relocation points within your car.

http://www.gendan.co.uk/product_OBD3M.html

The dummy port you will have to order from a BMW dealership and they will order it from their contacts in Germany. It will take 3-4 days to arrive. The part number (for E92) is 61-13-6-931-908. They are £5.

I cable tied the in-car OBD port to my extension cable and routed the opposite end of the cable to a secret location. I then bolted the dummy OBD port in place of my now hidden original OBD port.

In the dead of night it will hopefully confuse the thieves enough to send them on their way. It's all about confusing / hindering them. They don't have time to hunt for your OBD port or to start removing your dashboard even if they could get near it.

[Billyray911]

t8cmf said:

Happy to help.

Firstly, I don't know what variant of BMW you have so I'll tell you what I did (E92 M3) and you will have to find your particular version if it's not an E92.

The cable you will need is in the link below (the same cable is available on eBay also). Get the 3m length as it will give a whole host of possible relocation points within your car.

http://www.gendan.co.uk/product_OBD3M.html

The dummy port you will have to order from a BMW dealership and they will order it from their contacts in Germany. It will take 3-4 days to arrive. The part number (for E92) is 61-13-6-931-908. They are £5.

I cable tied the in-car OBD port to my extension cable and routed the opposite end of the cable to a secret location. I then bolted the dummy OBD port in place of my now hidden original OBD port.

In the dead of night it will hopefully confuse the thieves enough to send them on their way. It's all about confusing / hindering them. They don't have time to hunt for your OBD port or to start removing your dashboard even if they could get near it.

Thanks for the above-appreciated!
I've now ordered the cable and will do a bit of research to see which dummy port is needed for an E91.

[t8cmf]

Billyray911 said:

Thanks for the above-appreciated!
I've now ordered the cable and will do a bit of research to see which dummy port is needed for an E91.

It should be the same as the number I provided. I think the E9* platform all have the same internals. The second digit (I think) refers to the variant, ie coupe / convertible / 4 door / etc. Check anyway though just to be sure.