[Bomber]

Originally Posted by chargingbear

The obd was hidden and moved from the original place. They just ripped out all the plastic covering in the footwell until they found it. From the amount they removed, to hide it you would have literally have to have moved it to the passenger side!!.

This shows how bad the interior sensors are, they should not have been able to get that far in to start removing panels without the alarm going off!!!

It may be worth anyone with a tracker or similar device making sure theirs is not under the carpet in those spots!!

[Kerr]

Originally Posted by Bomber

This shows how bad the interior sensors are, they should not have been able to get that far in to start removing panels without the alarm going off!!!

It may be worth anyone with a tracker or similar device making sure theirs is not under the carpet in those spots!!

If you press the lock button twice, that turns off the proximity sensors inside the car.

[xPETEZx]

Dam! So hiding the port is useless basically.

Makes owning the car less of pleasure knowing it could be taken so easily.

Wonder if the F cars will be affected by this later in there life...

[1sh@Crystalwhite]

Im glad you were able to recover it!!! Must be some sort of relief! Hope the perps get caught!!

[Kassim786]

Originally Posted by chargingbear

The obd was hidden and moved from the original place. They just ripped out all the plastic covering in the footwell until they found it. From the amount they removed, to hide it you would have literally have to have moved it to the passenger side!!

Fortunately I waited to notify the insurance company so there will be no claim made on the car and now that it has been recovered it will be removed from the stolen database so thats two big wins!

The other great point is that the thieves now know that the car has a tracker well hidden somewhere on the car due to the police finding it so fast and also nearly catching them when they came back for the car so hopefully they will be leaving it alone in the future, however i will be fitting a new high end tracker/security system and also fitting a disklok every time I park it from now on.

along side the security buy a few baseball bats and keep em in a few different rooms

Just incase

[xPETEZx]

Did your car have the bmw "security" update? This could be definitive proof that it does nothing but stop the window drop if yours had it applied.

[AWBimmer]

Wow great news OP and yes a nuisance what with the few things missing bout could have Ben so much more worse! Well done anyways and get new keys

[The_Bear_Yid]

Glad you got it back!

[The_Bear_Yid]

Originally Posted by AWBimmer

Silly for me to think this but is it just me to think that there could be a very few select people on here who have registered, inactive (i.e. barely post) and keep an eye on people's cars / threads etc? Then when they think the opportunity is there, go for the loot?

What 'm saying is... does anybody think we have people on here who are keeping a watchful eye on other people's pride&joy?

Be really sad if that were the case......

They wouldn't even have to register. Nothing is private on this forum.

[dest]

I've never seen anyone on a public forum post an acurate enough location that would allow you to find a car in 13 years of using car forums

[Jules59]

Originally Posted by Bomber

This shows how bad the interior sensors are, they should not have been able to get that far in to start removing panels without the alarm going off!!!

It may be worth anyone with a tracker or similar device making sure theirs is not under the carpet in those spots!!

Another huge FAIL from BMW regarding car security !

Are Mercs better in this respect ??

[The_Bear_Yid]

dest - I don't agree with that. People may not put up postcodes but if someone knows the area then they'll be able to find it.

I can't imagine that car thieves have never used the net and forums.

[Batts335d]

If any one reading This hasn't ha the update from BMW or doesn't know if car has call them it's a free upgrade

They just the key so that it reads a day 5 digit code not a 4 any more or something like that so the thieves soft ware to reprograme the key is no longer able too work

Call customer service at local BMW and ask for security update they even came and picked mine up and dropped it off and gave it a wash winner !!

[hobo mofo]

I rang BMW about this security update but apparently my car is 2 months before the affected dates. I can't see the thieves going out of their way to steal a 325i. Hope i ain't jinxed myself. Touch wood.

[crypticc]

Originally Posted by jammy78

Does the BMW security upgrade code wipe all the retrofit coding you've had done?

Not on mine donea month ago. Kept e.g. the courtesy ventilation I had coded

[Frobius]

Chargingbear, did your car have the BMW security update?

[335DEE]

The real caveat hiding the OBD port is the fact that they know where the cable feeds into the car and like OP said , they just follow where it goes. That would take just seconds to find. Installing blank ones are easy to spot , so what I have done is go one further and buy an e90 obd port with wires connected from the local scrapper, cut them off at the back but leave the pins in. The port is in place and looks complete but to all intents and purposes the obd is dead. Oh and a disklok too

[Shere]

Originally Posted by 335DEE

The real caveat hiding the OBD port is the fact that they know where the cable feeds into the car and like OP said , they just follow where it goes. That would take just seconds to find. Installing blank ones are easy to spot , so what I have done is go one further and buy an e90 obd port with wires connected from the local scrapper, cut them off at the back but leave the pins in. The port is in place and looks complete but to all intents and purposes the obd is dead. Oh and a disklok too

So you've snipped off the obd, or installed a dummy one?

[335DEE]

Originally Posted by Shere

So you've snipped off the obd, or installed a dummy one?

Haha, no not snipped off the old one, I have moved it but installed a dummy one with pins in it, as opposed to a dummy one with no pins which is a message to would be thief to look further

[Shere]

Gotcha! So where to get a dummy one from. As you say a breakers yard, but was hoping for the lazy eBay option!

[tony20009]

Originally Posted by AWBimmer

Thieving t*ats! Sorry to hear that mate hope you find them and the car in one piece!

One wonders even if he finds the car in one piece, will the perpetrators be left that way?

GL, OP, finding your car.

[tony20009]

Glad to hear you got the car back in relatively good shape.

All the best.

Originally Posted by chargingbear

Well, just finished cleaning her up.

The only damage is the drivers glass and the door lock which is completely busted; no idea why they attempted to open the car door via the lock?

the other pain is that they thought the car may have had a tracker fitted and cut two square holes in the passenger and driver carpet at the footwell.

they parked the car up behind a large housing estate and waited to see if there was a tracker.

police were notified and watched the car. two suspicious people walked over to the car and the police gave chase but they got away, however they got photos of them.

The scum cleaned out the inside though; took the sat nav, chargers, cables fuel can, even warning triangle ffs.

so a new door and two carpet trims and with autoglass round in the morning should be good as new.

lucky really could have been much worse and best of all my brand new 313 were still in perfect condition