BMW 3T Security System problems.

[blue540]

Good day to you all,

I am posting in the fond hope that one of you guys will be familiar with the Factory fitted security system installed on my 540iaT.

Firstly, I think it may be wise to state that I live in the UK, possibly different systems to those in the States, however, the situation is as follows.

My Alarm and immobiliser were working well, if a little tempramental at times (occasionally numerous close range pressing of the button to get the car to unlock). Then one day I went to lock the car and could not get it to work at all. I locked the car with the key in the hope that it would be ok when I got back. No such luck, and as the immobiliser cuts after 30 seconds I was unable to start the car. Big problem, two kids and the wife stranded 30 miles from home!!

I had the car towed to the nearest dealer who charged me 205GBP to sort it out. The problem is that their solution to the problem was to totally disable the system by disconnecting some module or other. This leaves me with no alarm, no immobiliser and total closure keyless entry.

As some one once said on an E30 board that I frequent, "if it is fitted, it should work". I am therefore asking if any one knows any thing about these systems who can help me on the road to getting this sytem back up and running.

Many thanks in advance, great site, great info.

Steve

[joshua43214]

This system is tempramental when it ages. what you experienced was a built in fail safe in the anti theft system. After the car recieves 1000 incorrect signals from the key, it locks out the system in double lock mode. The dealer can reset the sustem, but after a while, it will happen again unless you can figure out where the intermittant bad signal is comming from. Most likely the key itself is at fault.

Have the dealer re initialize the system, lean on them to cut you a deal, they should have given you the option when you droped the car off, the tech just wanted to ship your car as fast as possible because fooling with the alarm pays poorly. keep in mind, your car belongs in a museum to the techs at the dealer, the will have to dig up the service bulitins pertaining to the alarm. You can order a new key and hope it works, but they are rather expensive, and may not be the problem.

I went arround on this for a while on my car. I replaced the key and its better, but not all better. You will basicaly have to either pay a boatload of cash to keep replacing intermitant failure parts until its fixed, retrofit a separate alarm system, or not use the double lock feature.

I prefer the key remote and dont have a ton of money, so I only use the double lock when parked in a high risk area. If you have a tech at the dealer that you normaly use, you can slip arround and see if he will be willing to occasionaly reset the system for $20.00 or so.