Spotted a nice BMW m-series key fob among the rocks while out in the Dales today. Don’t think it had been there too long, by the state of it. One of these:

Riding through the nearest village pointing it at random BMWs didn’t yield a result, and I left a note with my contact numbers at the village store. Apparently the police don’t want them handed in any more.

Are these things registered with the owner’s details so that a dealer could help reunite them with their owner?

Yeah possibly through a dealer but Facebook is good for this sort of thing too.

Any BMW dealer will be able to read and repatriate…

Couldn’t seem to find any Facebook page which a BMW-owning rambler might think to look on.

EDIT: Thanks – now to find a handy dealer and stick them in the post.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/marcwebertobias/2015/09/24/another-reason-not-to-steal-cars-key-fobs-now-store-a-ton-of-data/#3e6824b35013

Oh and bleeping randomly on key fobs on some models locks them out.

That would be unfortunate!

Yeah but they can be reactivated in the same was as a new fob.

The key fob on a BMW stores the car’s service history. Any dealer will be able to read it and get it back to them.

@Flaperon that’s valuable information which will have the owner breathing a sigh of relief!

@Flaperon that’s valuable information which will have the owner breathing a sigh of relief!

Not just valuable info, those keys cost £250-350 to replace…

@CountZero

those keys cost £250-350 to replace…

Oh well, BMW Leeds not interested. Not their policy, apparently. Perhaps the police will accept them on the same basis they do mobiles etc if I can suggest to them there is data to be recovered from it.

BMW Leeds not interested

Bloody hell, that’s piss poor! Won’t make the slightest effort for a customer? I’d like to know their reasons for that, a question possibly best asked by the medium of Twitter. 🤬

BMW Leeds not interested. Not their policy, apparently.

those keys cost £250-350 to replace…

But I guess they’ll happily supply a new one to the owner..

The person I spoke to was perfectly nice, but clearly someone in service wasn’t interested in plugging it in unless it had been delivered with a police escort and form 167(c) correctly filled in and stamped.

Except poor BMW customer has already stumped up for a new fob by then and got his locks changed.

Happy ending to report. 🙂

Rang the shop in the next village along on the off-chance, owner had been in five minutes previously and left her number. She’s popping along to get them.

Excellent result!

Happy ending? wow she must have been pleased to get her keyfob back……… 😉

🧢

wow she must have been pleased to get her keyfob back

Let’s hope this place never changes…

Making her come round is a bit rotten; it’s not that she can drive…

Happy ending? wow she must have been pleased to get her keyfob back……

🙂

I hope you mention how piss poor bmw were…

Funny enough, she’d had her own bureaucratic saga already trying to sort out a replacement. Luckily she’s not given them any cash so far.

That’s awful service from BMW, would love to know their justification. (Ok, I fess up, I drive a BMW, so more than just a passing interest). Nice ending to the story though.

boomerlives

Subscriber
Making her come round is a bit rotten; it’s not that she can drive…

Don’t worry, it was only a few miles, she rode her £8k Yeti down to pick the key up.

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Please keep an eye out for suspicious characters riding a nice Yeti full suspension. It was stolen from outside a local shop whilst the owner chatted about her previously lost car key.

It’s a shame there’s nothing on it to tell you who it belongs to, that said being bwm I’m not surprised theres no indication

That’s awful service from BMW, would love to know their justification.

I think their justification is that it costs them money to get a tech to read it, and it probably isn’t their customer anyway.

Seems a bit bizarre that I could find a key lying in the street outside their premises, but according to their policy, rather than just stroll in and help someone out, I’d have to go to the police, who would probably tell me they couldn’t accept it anyway.

Certainly gives meaning to the phrase ‘fobbing someone off’.

It’s a shame there’s nothing on it to tell you who it belongs to, that said being bwm I’m not surprised theres no indication

The keyfob readers in the dealerships are on the desks of most, if not all the service folk. It’s a 10s job to read it. Doesn’t need a trained mechanic or anything.

I already have a poor opinion of BMW’s, this sort of attitude just reinforces it.

Don’t worry, it was only a few miles, she rode her £8k Yeti down to pick the key up.

I thought a Skoda Yeti when I read this, So slow!