BMW Thefts

[V8A*ndy]

Frik said:

eastsider said:

Maybe the statement should end "BMW acknowledges the risk of long term brand damage and loss of loyal customers but is so arrogant it doesn't care."

It's not quite as simple as that is it? As they point out: if they weren't desirable, they wouldn't keep getting nicked!

I know this is a different problem but here in Belfast the "joyriders" just steal what's the simplest to get into.

For example Honda Civics were often taken as the weak steering locks could be broken by 12 year olds.

However once every chav gets their hands on a smart phone OBD "zapper" there will be a lot of beemers getting the death around West Belfast and other areas.

[eastsider]

HFLagos said:

BMW's response here is similarly stupid to the one I received after I contacted the MD for BMW UK and their Head of Customer Services directly. Genuinely surprised by their nonchalant response, they followed up later by refusing permission for me to copy it on to PH.

As others have said, BMW are taking the modern business response approach at this time which is deny everything. At the dealership/service desk level this is not surprising, those staff most likely genuinely have no knowledge. At the BMW UK level it is far less acceptable.

I'm sure people from all walks of life are BMW customers, but these high value cars being taken will definitely have owners such as lawyers, PR professionals, journalists, members of the media amongst them. People who know how to organise themselves and make BMW UK's life very difficult. It would seem BMW would prefer a PR war like that than quickly and efficiently dealing with the issue eg with an appropriate recall.

[Frik]

Okay, playing devil's advocate for a second, if BMW have no easy solution to this issue (and security solutions are never easy, by definition), what should they be doing?

[Captain Muppet]

Frik said:

Okay, playing devil's advocate for a second, if BMW have no easy solution to this issue (and security solutions are never easy, by definition), what should they be doing?

They should be working on a difficult solution while trying not to create panic by sending out a press relase saying "anyone can steal our cars!!!1111!!".

[andy_shaf]

Do you think this can turn into one of those threads that can actually make a company look at and take action...


Anyway here are the email addresses for BMW for people who want to complain. I would suggest as many people as possible send their PR office an email.



[e-mail] - Corp Communication Director


[e-mail] - Corp Coommunication Manager

[Potatoes]

Thanks Andy...

I read about this before I got mine but knew it was rare as hell, reading this again has me worried.

Really feel for that guy who had the M6 nicked!

This is pretty damaging PR and BMW will undoubtedly be working behind the scenes on this. Whether a recall happens I'm not sure but they will tighten their key-coding software on the cars they release moving forward.

[jonjay]

andy_shaf said:

Do you think this can turn into one of those threads that can actually make a company look at and take action...


Anyway here are the email addresses for BMW for people who want to complain. I would suggest as many people as possible send their PR office an email.



[e-mail] - Corp Communication Director


[e-mail] - Corp Coommunication Manager

Thanks mate,

I emailed both of them.

[barrisimo]

I had my car broken in to on the 14th April. M3 E92. I LIVE IN North London. They smashed the drivers side window and had tampered with the cover of the diagnostics port. Initially I thought it odd that nothing was taken from the car and had assumed they must have been scared off by the alarm. Reading the various chats I am now very concerned. I spoke to the Met who said they were aware of a number of keyless thefts and felt BMW cars are vulnerable. I spoke to my BMW dealer who said they were aware of it and spoke to BMW customer services who could not have been more dismissive if they tried. They claimed to have heard rumours and are considering investigating and their cars meet European standard etc. This really needs to brought to the attention of the media What Car, Auto Car, Top Gear, Which etc has anyone written a letter to any of them I would be interested in what response you got. Do we need to write in numbers to get a reaction?

Beyond buying a steering wheel lock I am now not sure what I can do really annoyed with BMW and thinking of getting shot of the motor!

[davepoth]

I'd take a look at the wiring diagram for your car to see if there is a relay that can be pulled easily to immobilize it. The fuel pump one should do the job.

[barrisimo]

I had my car broken in to on the 14th April. M3 E92. I LIVE IN North London. They smashed the drivers side window and had tampered with the cover of the diagnostics port. Initially I thought it odd that nothing was taken from the car and had assumed they must have been scared off by the alarm. Reading the various chats I am now very concerned. I spoke to the Met who said they were aware of a number of keyless thefts and felt BMW cars are vulnerable. I spoke to my BMW dealer who said they were aware of it and spoke to BMW customer services who could not have been more dismissive if they tried. They claimed to have heard rumours and are considering investigating and their cars meet European standard etc. This really needs to brought to the attention of the media What Car, Auto Car, Top Gear, Which etc has anyone written a letter to any of them I would be interested in what response you got. Do we need to write in numbers to get a reaction?

Beyond buying a steering wheel lock I am now not sure what I can do really annoyed with BMW and thinking of getting shot of the motor!

[anonymous-user]

Listen chaps, it's easy! Just remove one of the CAN bus wires from your J1962 OBD socket. The wires push backwards out of the plastic connector by pushing down a little locking tab. Then just tape said wire back onto the loom with a bit of electrical insulating tape.


Said thief is not going to be spending time with his head upsidedown in your footwells trying to find out why his tool can get coms with your car for any length of time. If your dealler needs to communicate with the car, they can just spend a min putting the contact back into place:



Remove either pin 6 (CAN low) or 14 (CAN high)

[Devil2575]

giggity said:

The problem is China are making cheap clones ...

How many times do we hear this. I've read it three time today on PH alone. How about doing something about the huge wave of cheap ripoffs/clones and copies coming out of China.

[Contigo]

Max_Torque said:

Listen chaps, it's easy! Just remove one of the CAN bus wires from your J1962 OBD socket. The wires push backwards out of the plastic connector by pushing down a little locking tab. Then just tape said wire back onto the loom with a bit of electrical insulating tape.


Said thief is not going to be spending time with his head upsidedown in your footwells trying to find out why his tool can get coms with your car for any length of time. If your dealler needs to communicate with the car, they can just spend a min putting the contact back into place:



Remove either pin 6 (CAN low) or 14 (CAN high)

Top Tip there Max.

[CoolHands]

Devil2575 said:

How many times do we hear this. I've read it three time today on PH alone. How about doing something about the huge wave of cheap ripoffs/clones and copies coming out of China.

It wouldn't matter where the tool is made. It's not illegal to make / own / distribute a tool that communicates with / reprogrammes / or does anything else you want to a vehicle's ecu. To think that way is a complete non-starter.

[JT1982]

Hi, I am sorry to hear your car has also been stolen. Ours was too, without the key: http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=113...

I have contacted Watchdog already. I hope that victims will do likewise so that if they have a mass of similar situations they will publish a story on this. This seems to be the only way to get the wider public to become aware of this issue which BMW deny.

I will also be making a written complaint to BMW this week. Speaking to them on the phone is like talking to a brick wall.

I contacted their Customer Service by telephone several times already, however was fobbed off with the "all ours cars comply with EU regulations", "you cannot prove your car's alarm didnt go off" and "there is no evidence that BMW are at fault".

Here's the humdinger... I was also recommended to contact my local dealership to find out if my car needed a software update and that the dealership would do this if needed. I explained how this was even remotely possible as my car had been STOLEN and wasn't in my possesion hence the reason for my call...and any software update that may have helped was too late...to which the response was "well we can't help you then".

One word describes BMW in my opinion...INCOMPETENT.

[s3fella]

Cars have always been nickable, IME. In the 70s and 80s we had aftermarket stuff to help hold onto your property. But cara still got nicked, with it or without it. When we got insurance immobilisers, we had to spend 500 quid on aftermarket alarms etc to get insurance, when decent cars were 10k. We did not moan or whine, we just did it, it was part of buying and owning a car.
So the great EU got involved and made car makers fit these systems as standard..... What do the thieves do, do they stop nicking cars......no, they break in with bats and beat the owners up for the keys!!
All we have here is the late 80 s and 90 s back again, cars going without keys. It does not matter, IMO whether a car is lifted onto a truck and taken, or just taken using a laptop, it is stil taken. All this whining about BMW being incompetent etc is wrong, they have a product that was good enough for owners to buy, and some clever toe rags are nicking them. The method is iMO immaterial, audis were being half inched left right and centre round my way a few years back, stolen with keys, car jacking etc. now BMWs are being targetted. Just take some, sensible precautions as we did in yEars gone by and you limit the chances of your bm going walkies, but if they really really want it, guess what, they will get it. Same as they did for the last 50 years!
Get a decent steering lock, remove a relay or get a hiddent switch . If you don't want to do that, accept that the car is at risk, the same as it has been for the last 10 years whilst theft with keys have been rife.
It's not BMWs fault, it's the thieves fault. If you want to stop them, don't bh about it, just take some of the sensible advice metered out here and make it more difficult. But that is all you can do, make it more difficult.

[NelsonR32]

BMW have dropped an absolutely massive bk here and there response to this is shocking. You can't code an modern Audi key without being linked up to Germany via an Approved Dealer. Seems Audi thought about bladeless keys allot more harder than they did.

Shame that BMW's response to common problems (E46 boot floors, VANO's problems, fuel pump problems on 35i engines) always seems to be deny, deny and deny.

[theaxe]

Max_Torque said:

Listen chaps, it's easy! Just remove one of the CAN bus wires from your J1962 OBD socket. The wires push backwards out of the plastic connector by pushing down a little locking tab. Then just tape said wire back onto the loom with a bit of electrical insulating tape.


Said thief is not going to be spending time with his head upsidedown in your footwells trying to find out why his tool can get coms with your car for any length of time. If your dealler needs to communicate with the car, they can just spend a min putting the contact back into place:



Remove either pin 6 (CAN low) or 14 (CAN high)

Thanks for that, I assume it wouldn't be too hard to just snip the wire and add a hidden switch. As you say, not too complicated but I can't imagine too many car thieves would bother to figure it out.

[Frik]

Frik said:

Okay, playing devil's advocate for a second, if BMW have no easy solution to this issue (and security solutions are never easy, by definition), what should they be doing?

I'll reiterate my question. Assuming they're working to fix the problem (a fair assumption), what exactly should they be doing in terms of PR that they aren't doing right now?

[Rich_W]

Motorrad said:

Last time I saw the disklok mentioned here someone claimed he could remove one easily without the key. He was asked to provide proof but didn't. I concluded he was talking bks as every report I've ever read involving lost keys involves a lengthy period of cutting and drilling by a locksmith.

Bit of a pain in the arse using one every time you get in and out of your 30k+ daily driver however.

That may have been me. Funnily enough I decided NOT to post on a public forum how to do it. But if you live near South London let me know and I'll come show you. 2 Mins absolute tops. Oh and I charge £1000 for this demo :- )

Motorrad said:

The person who claimed the disklok can be defeated quickly and easily said the method used was brute force. Sounds like cr@p to me.

Yep. There's actually TWO methods.

First is to use absolut brute force (though this is dependent on the vehicle it's fitted to) Second is much much simpler and quicker!

paulrussell said:

CoolHands said:

the proper disklok (the round yellow one that covers the steering wheel) has a security key that can't be picked (I own one).

Every lock that uses a key can be picked, though the decent locks take a very long time, so locksmiths use other ways to overcome those locks.

BMW UK said:

“The battle against increasingly sophisticated thieves is a constant challenge for all car makers. Desirable, premium-branded cars, like BMW and its competitors, have always been targeted. BMW has been at the forefront of vehicle security for many years ... This data is used to enhance our defense (sic) systems accordingly. Currently BMW Group products meet or exceed all global legislative criteria concerning vehicle security.”

To be fair to BMW.(and all manufacturers) They are always going to be one step behind the criminals. Cars are "relatively" easy to steal. They are left alone, normally outside for hours on end.

CoolHands said:

mk4 vw golfs and passats have a design flaw whereby you can open the central locking (and thus get in the car without the alarm going off) after you pull out the door lock (which is quite easy to do). You need to 'delock' them. VW never did a damn thing about it, it's up to individual owners to do it. My brother had all his airbags stolen out of his passat via this method (cost a helluva lot back then when passat was a current model).

ripped out:



delocked:



anyway my point is I think manufacturers don't consider themselves 'responsible' if your car gets nicked by whatever method - as there is always going to be some way cars can get nicked. The thief is the responsible party.

1) VW did do something about it. I know this for a absolute fact, as they were on Watchdog at the time and implemented a semi recall for any customers that wanted it. It wasn't perfect, but better than nothing.

2) Fitting the non barrel blank as on the blue car doesn't totally stop the fault.

theaxe said:

Thanks for that, I assume it wouldn't be too hard to just snip the wire and add a hidden switch. As you say, not too complicated but I can't imagine too many car thieves would bother to figure it out.

That'll please BMW warranty. "Hi yes, I've fked my CAN network up properly by cutting random wires can you fix it please"

s3fella said:

Cars have always been nickable, IME. In the 70s and 80s we had aftermarket stuff to help hold onto your property. But cara still got nicked, with it or without it. When we got insurance immobilisers, we had to spend 500 quid on aftermarket alarms etc to get insurance, when decent cars were 10k. We did not moan or whine, we just did it, it was part of buying and owning a car.
So the great EU got involved and made car makers fit these systems as standard..... What do the thieves do, do they stop nicking cars......no, they break in with bats and beat the owners up for the keys!!
All we have here is the late 80 s and 90 s back again, cars going without keys. It does not matter, IMO whether a car is lifted onto a truck and taken, or just taken using a laptop, it is stil taken. All this whining about BMW being incompetent etc is wrong, they have a product that was good enough for owners to buy, and some clever toe rags are nicking them. The method is iMO immaterial, audis were being half inched left right and centre round my way a few years back, stolen with keys, car jacking etc. now BMWs are being targetted. Just take some, sensible precautions as we did in yEars gone by and you limit the chances of your bm going walkies, but if they really really want it, guess what, they will get it. Same as they did for the last 50 years!
Get a decent steering lock, remove a relay or get a hiddent switch . If you don't want to do that, accept that the car is at risk, the same as it has been for the last 10 years whilst theft with keys have been rife.
It's not BMWs fault, it's the thieves fault. If you want to stop them, don't bh about it, just take some of the sensible advice metered out here and make it more difficult. But that is all you can do, make it more difficult.

Don't you bring facts in here. It's not the thieves fault. It's BMW's dammit!