New BMW's getting stolen using blank BMW keys

[anonymous-user]

Can anyone tell me if an E89 Z4 is vulnerable to all this?

There still seems to be a lack of information on the exact models affected.

[eastsider]

neilkav said:

Just remember, these things always happen to someone else until they happen to you and you wake up to an empty driveway.

This. You don't know what it feels like, the anger, until it happens to you. Anger at BMW that this is possible in 2012 due to very basic IT security flaws by one of the most advanced, wealthy, premium manufacturers in the world.

I hope it doesn't happen to you but the chances are significantly higher than they were say 12 months ago, especially if you bought a large diesel engined sport.

[Kuroblack350]

neilkav said:

I'm glad you feel all safe and secure about your new purchase.

I don't, that's why I've gone back to 1999 and bought a disklok. It was a very easy, sensible precaution.

neilkav said:

just like the thousands that have been stolen since january this year.

And that's exactly what gets to me about this thread. How on earth can you qualify that?

[ArsE92]

Kuroblack350 said:

neilkav said:

I'm glad you feel all safe and secure about your new purchase.

I don't, that's why I've gone back to 1999 and bought a disklok. It was a very easy, sensible precaution.

neilkav said:

just like the thousands that have been stolen since january this year.

And that's exactly what gets to me about this thread. How on earth can you qualify that?

There are figures from the relevant Police forces earlier in the thread.

[Kuroblack350]

ArsE92 said:

There are figures from the relevant Police forces earlier in the thread.

Ok, I'll happily spend the rest of the afternoon eating humble pie if you can quote the figures and source. If you can add relevant, accurate context that would be even better.

[ArsE92]

Kuroblack350 said:

ArsE92 said:

There are figures from the relevant Police forces earlier in the thread.

Ok, I'll happily spend the rest of the afternoon eating humble pie if you can quote the figures and source. If you can add relevant, accurate context that would be even better.

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.

I agree that there may be some hyperbole in this thread but you can't really argue with those figures unless you have a reason to believe that they are completely fabricated.

[Kuroblack350]

ArsE92 said:

Kuroblack350 said:

ArsE92 said:

There are figures from the relevant Police forces earlier in the thread.

Ok, I'll happily spend the rest of the afternoon eating humble pie if you can quote the figures and source. If you can add relevant, accurate context that would be even better.

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.

I agree that there may be some hyperbole in this thread but you can't really argue with those figures unless you have a reason to believe that they are completely fabricated.

Good post

It's always hard to draw conclusions or highlight trends from raw data though. For example:

camshafted said:

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

We can see that the difference between 2010 and 2011 is around 540 additional thefts. The following year it's (forecasted) 390ish. Does this mean the trend is heading down? That's a 27% drop in BMW theft according to my just-scraped-a-C maths.

Difficult to be sure as to the extent of the issue.

If you do a google search for BMW ODB Theft - most results bring you back to PH via one forum or another. Yes, there are a few articles, and stacks of links to the infamous Youtube vid - but not the pages and pages I was expecting. Even a short threads on E90post and the 1 series forum bring you back to our beloved PH...

If you look on Twitter and search for BMW ODB it returns nothing at all...

Open question - are we effectively scaring ourselves here? (Is that why I ran off late yesterday in search of a Disklok?!)

As a young Scooby owner, I worried extensively about the popular piston 3 exiting the block violently due to oil starvation - it never did in four years of hard charging. My 350Z; I worried for two years that it would eat all of it's oil in one sitting and explode; just because a handful actually did.

The internet is a wonderful thing and a great tool - sometimes though, it's a right royal PITA

[r999]

Kuroblack350 said:

We can see that the difference between 2010 and 2011 is around 540 additional thefts. The following year it's (forecasted) 390ish. Does this mean the trend is heading down? That's a 27% drop in BMW theft according to my just-scraped-a-C maths.

Actually, it's a 17.5% increase.

Kuroblack350 said:

If you look on Twitter and search for BMW ODB it returns nothing at all...

Maybe because the acronym is OBD, not ODB.

Kuroblack350 said:

The internet is a wonderful thing and a great tool - sometimes though, it's a right royal PITA

No comment.

[MadAdMan]

ArsE92 said:

I agree that there may be some hyperbole in this thread but you can't really argue with those figures unless you have a reason to believe that they are completely fabricated.

also worth noting that the police are the only ones whom have offered up a warning to BMW owners (all be it muffled) west mids and met have both posted a heads up regarding the recent commonality between thefts and the OM's. Since first reporting my own incident across forums and social feeds ive had 193 people contact me who have either had their car stolen or only to be returned beyond repair (one had been used as a drug mule) i would be really interested to see the ins groups aggregated BMW claim numbers for the year so far!

[MadAdMan]

interesting article from Digital Forensic Experts http://www.sytech-consultants.com/blog/2012/bmw-se...

[MadAdMan]

just heard the best quote "BMW was keen to point out that its cars aren't the only ones affected by these crimes. The best precaution is to buy and use a steering wheel lock, fit a tracker device and invest in an aftermarket alarm." im speechless and am now seriously considering switching from BMW permanently.

[t8cmf]

r999 said:

Kuroblack350 said:

We can see that the difference between 2010 and 2011 is around 540 additional thefts. The following year it's (forecasted) 390ish. Does this mean the trend is heading down? That's a 27% drop in BMW theft according to my just-scraped-a-C maths.

Actually, it's a 17.5% increase.

Kuroblack350 said:

If you look on Twitter and search for BMW ODB it returns nothing at all...

Maybe because the acronym is OBD, not ODB.

Kuroblack350 said:

The internet is a wonderful thing and a great tool - sometimes though, it's a right royal PITA

No comment.

Just out of interest bud how do you get 17.5%?

390 is 72.2% of 540 which would make the difference / drop 27.8%.

Is that right or am I going mad?

[youngsyr]

t8cmf said:

Just out of interest bud how do you get 17.5%?

390 is 72.2% of 540 which would make the difference / drop 27.8%.

Is that right or am I going mad?

Not mad, just an "interesting" view of the stats. Yes, the growth rate in BMW thefts is slowing, but the number of BMW thefts is still growing each year.

[Cheib]

As I have posted in this thread before....the chances of BMW admitting fault and coming up with a retrofit/recall notice are near zero. Unless Thatcham or Insurance industry pressure forces them too it's just not going to happen. The number of cars it effects is in the hundreds of thousands....spread that over the 200 BMW dealers in the UK and you can see it's a logistical nightmare for anything other than a 15 min solution that could be done as part of a service. Re-programming a car isn't going to happen.

[Steffan]

Cheib said:

As I have posted in this thread before....the chances of BMW admitting fault and coming up with a retrofit/recall notice are near zero. Unless Thatcham or Insurance industry pressure forces them too it's just not going to happen. The number of cars it effects is in the hundreds of thousands....spread that over the 200 BMW dealers in the UK and you can see it's a logistical nightmare for anything other than a 15 min solution that could be done as part of a service. Re-programming a car isn't going to happen.

I do think this is the realistic view. Quite honestly I have huge sympathy for the BMW owners who have bought a very expensive car that is not at all safe from theft all too easily.

In reality I think there is a very stark choice. Either but a BMW and accept the risk or buy a car less likely to be stolen. I do think the website idea is certainly worth a try, but the economic cost of admitting the fault in the security of BMW cars means that no admission will be forthcoming from BMW. Nor will BMW offer any reprogramming to the cars affected.

I wish this were not the case but this thread has been running for the best part of 6 months and so far as I can see no effective action, or admission of fault, has been admitted or offered by BMW. Despite the direct approaches of BMW owners affected to BMW and all the media coverage.

I do not think BMW will address this problem, until the new series of cars designed post discovery of the weakness are brought out. Unwelcome and unfair but I regret to say that does seem to be the reality of this matter.

[MadAdMan]

if this was the USA their is enough people 'effected' to bring a class action? do we have similar laws in uk/EU? just a thought?

[HoHoHo]

MadAdMan said:

if this was the USA their is enough people 'effected' to bring a class action? do we have similar laws in uk/EU? just a thought?

Are they having the same problem in the US?

[S Works]

Regardless of the hyperbole argument, the fact remains that BMW's alarm system needs a small tweak. Solve that, please a lot of folks (by & large) while you resolve the port/access control challenge.

I'm no engineer, but it cannot be beyond the wit of man (or multi-billion dollar engineering corporation), to create a fix for the alarm black spot. I can't imagine it being hugely expensive to fix either, and as an owner I'd rather pay BMW a couple of hundred quid to fit another sensor in the blind spot than arse about with a £90 disc lock.

Foot well-and-truly shot, BMW!

[Kuroblack350]

HoHoHo said:

Are they having the same problem in the US?

That's a good question. I've done a very quick trawl and found very little, most threads talk about the 1M theft, or direct back to this thread.

[Guvernator]

Kuroblack350 said:

HoHoHo said:

Are they having the same problem in the US?

That's a good question. I've done a very quick trawl and found very little, most threads talk about the 1M theft, or direct back to this thread.

They aren't having the issue because LHD cars don't have the blind spot in the alarm on that side. This has been confirmed by owners doing tests on US forums. This is a RHD car issue due to BMW cheaping out and not bothering to fit a properly designed sensor to the right hand side of the car to save on costs.