[SSW]

Reported in the DIY E90 Factory Alarm Installation thread about my experience installing the OEM alarm kit that I bought from Circle BMW in NJ in my 2008 335i E90 yesterday, which (with one exception) was pretty easy overall.

See: http://www.e90post.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=172

Found a post by someone here who to took their car to European Auto Works in Sunnyvale to have his alarm programmed several years ago. So, I called to see if they could still do it now and was told they could do it for $120. They were also offering $16 discount on labor over $100. My local BMW dealer wanted $195. So, I took it too European Auto Works today to get the job done for just $104.

Let me warn EVERYONE that you will NOT get that rate quoted to you for an alarm programming by European Auto Works again because it took them 5 hours to update 5 computer modules in my car to make the alarm work right!!! Five f*cking hours, when they estimated the work would be done in an hour! This is not a criticism of the shop -- they did the best they could -- but the software in the car is very complicated and it is not just a matter of "plug and play" to get the alarm working right, even for a qualified shop. They even had to call BMW Tech Support to get advice on how to get it to work.

The owner Russ said that he should have charged $200 (about the same as the BMW dealer) to do the job but that he would honor the $120 rate quoted to me and the $16 net discount, so I got a real bargain at only $104 for the job.

In any event, the car now goes "beep" and "beep-beep" when the car is locked and unlocked and the red "clown nose" button under the mirror blinks when the car is locked and the alarm is "armed."

I was able to set off the siren by sitting in the car and moving around after the alarm was armed. However, I couldn't open the doors thru the window after the doors were locked with the key fob. The interior latch doesn't work when the alarm is armed. Also couldn't set off the alarm by opening the hood by releasing the hood latch in the car, but I may not have waited long enough for the alarm to arm itself. So, I may try doing that again.

Total cost for the alarm installation and programming was $360 ($243 plus $13 shipping and $104 labor) which is a pretty good deal but you now should expect to pay at least $100 more if you take it to European Auto Works to get the job done now.

Before they started work, I told them that I had a Cobb tune in the car and wanted to make sure that the alarm programming would not affect that (or vice versa). They said it would not matter but the test will be to see what happens if/when I try to uninstall the Cobb map that I installed previously. I'm in no hurry to do that but I probably should "check" it to sometime soon to make sure I can still uninstall the Cobb map and reinstall my stock map later.

BTW, I think the siren is pretty weak -- it's high pitched but it's not very loud -- hardly "piercing" or even attention getting -- but something is better than nothing and I feel better now that there is a blinking red light which indicates that there is an alarm in the car to ward off evil doers. LOL!!!