Never buy abmw- in winter !

[lozz]

ive spent 3 and half hours on a bmw,

whats wrong with it erm? flat battery,

but try and open the doors, owner said,

ffs whos idea was it to but the battery in the boot of them,
and theres no door locks,

the owner had a accrington brick ready. no put that down and iwill see if ican get in,
ended up crawling under the car in 2 ft of rain with a set of jump leads one on the + point and the other one hooked onto a trackrod end, Bingo ! doors open,

[Sonia406]

ive spent 3 and half hours on a bmw,

whats wrong with it erm? flat battery,

but try and open the doors, owner said,

ffs whos idea was it to but the battery in the boot of them,
and theres no door locks,

the owner had a accrington brick ready. no put that down and iwill see if ican get in,
ended up crawling under the car in 2 ft of rain with a set of jump leads one on the + point and the other one hooked onto a trackrod end, Bingo ! doors open,

Ha ha, a 3 series by any chance? I've recently had to help a friend with her fathers... Literally... awful cars!
Well done on your thinking though.....

Still not entirely sure why my friends dads BMW went and had a hissy fit...

[Busman]

This seems to be a common problem. What breed of idiot thinks it's a good idea to make a car with no way of getting into it if the electrics fail? This could be in the key or the car.

[Bailes1992]

Weird. I know about the battery in the boot but there's always a lock on the door and jumping points in the engine bay.

[Welly]

I want to know if you managed to get the indicators to work?

[steve_earwig]

I think that was one thing I came across while I was looking at 4x4s before I got the yoyo, X3s and X5s seem to have a lot of electronic issues and randomly drop dead for no readily apparent reason.

Seeing as how popular Bimmers are amongst the crims I suppose removing all the locks does make them a tad more impregnable. Getting rid of the doors is the next step...

[rwb]

. What breed of idiot thinks it's a good idea to make a car with no way of getting into it if the electrics fail?

Germans: it can't fail because if it could fail then they'd have designed it differently.

[mjb]

Yeah I had that fun with my last bimmer. Took the battery out to charge and closed the tailgate so I could close the garage door... Oops. The E39 tailgate is solenoid-opening, not mechanical.

Thankfully I could get in the other doors, so I ended up dropping the back seat and climbing through to hit the interior mechanical opener

[Sonia406]

Yeah I had that fun with my last bimmer. Took the battery out to charge and closed the tailgate so I could close the garage door... Oops. The E39 tailgate is solenoid-opening, not mechanical.

Thankfully I could get in the other doors, so I ended up dropping the back seat and climbing through to hit the interior mechanical opener

And here's the reason guys we buy French

[lozz]

@ Bailes yeah there was alock on one door, driverside, of which was passenger side uk, (stupid left-hooker)
No way of opening it with key,

bonnet catch is Electric- no cable so no way of popping the bonnet,

as soon as it got a drop in volts the thing had gone into hedge hog mode,

[Doggy]

as soon as it got a drop in volts the thing had gone into hedge hog mode,

I was going to argue with that statement as normally the pricks are on the inside, but since the owner was locked out in this instance, I guess you're right.

[davew]

my friends and also my wife think i'm nuts my last car was a 2004 bmw 320d touring i had the car for a year and sold it to buy a 406 estate, i've got an allotment and am always needing to move stuff about i used to get 4 pallets inside my old xantia estate i couldn't fit any in the bmw the boot is tiny the smallest estate i think i've ever owned, i've also had the miss fortune of having to scramble over the back seat to get at the battery also if the battery gets slightly low the car throws a hissy fit and all sorts of strange things happen with lights and gauges, it went quite well but was rubbish on fuel and most of the spares cost a fortune, i would never have another one.
the 406 doesn't feel anywhere as well screwed together but who cares, being made of cheaper materials isn't going to make a difference to how reliable a car is.

[lozz]

The toure'r I opend yesterday the owner's wife made me laugh
She said this car is ugly, isaid why did you buy it then, reply was because my boyfriend likes its engine,


well anyways this is how you open them, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veh1eGTWZ7M

the negative lead didn't work on the caliper couid only get an earth off the track rod end, which confused me,

[steve_earwig]

I couldn't work out where the positive lead went, is it something specific or just the positive feed to the starter motor?

reply was because my boyfriend likes its engine,

Should've just bought the engine, it'd look great on the coffee table, never get nicked there either...

[lozz]

I couldn't work out where the positive lead went, is it something specific or just the positive feed to the starter motor?

reply was because my boyfriend likes its engine,

Should've just bought the engine, it'd look great on the coffee table, never get nicked there either...

just facing the gear box (side on view) theres a positive pole bolted to the floor of the car- with a plastic cover on,

(its a fly lead for the purpose of getting power to the car, altho Bmw don't seem to have spilled the beans about it on the net -
probably to get there 175 quid tow in and fix it in seconds fee, )