alarm recommended?

C'est un grand forum. J'ai mon coupé E9x mercredi. Quand j'ai acheté la voiture, je savais qu'elle n'avait pas d'alarme. Le PDSF original de 2011 était de 72 000 $! Je trouve décevant que l’une des meilleures voitures au monde ne soit pas livrée avec une alarme à ce prix. Cela dit, vaut-il la peine d'obtenir une alarme d'usine BMW pour une voiture de quatre ans?

Non, ils ne sont pas précâblés. Ils l'étaient, mais cela s'est arrêté bien avant 2011, je suis sûr pour des raisons de réduction des coûts. Je ne l'achèterais pas moi-même, surtout si vous n'êtes pas précâblé (je pense que c'est comme 1200 $?) sauf si vous voulez vraiment ce point clignotant, parce que les économies d'assurance ne seront certainement pas près de payer pour l'alarme. Sur la R56 MINI, vous pouvez en fait coder le voyant pour qu'il clignote même si vous n'avez pas l'alarme, mais malheureusement cette option n'est pas disponible pour les BMW.

Qu’en est-il des alarmes de marché ? Je suis probablement sur l'analyse de cela. Ce n'est pas comme si je me garais dans des zones à haut risque. Les voleurs locaux ont dit qu’ils l’installeraient pour un ridicule 840 $. Folle

alarms are useless anyways...if someone wants to steal your car, he will do it with or without an alarm

Dr. George wrote  

What about after market alarms? I'm probably over analyzing this. Its not like I park in high risk areas. The local stealership said they would install it for a ridiculous $840. Crazy

Never bothered to look at them. BMWs have sufficiently complicated and expensive-to-fix electronics without adding aftermarket stuff into the mix IMHO. I wouldn't worry about not having an alarm, honestly.

are you sure it has no alarm?

just saying... i thought mine did not as well, mainly because:

a) the stock setup (at least in EU) does not flash or "beep" when you turn on /off the alarm.

b) the stock setup DOES NOT have a "shock" sensor.

due to the 2 above, it was a bit tricky to set the alarm off to actually see if it was working.

the only way to test it was to lock the car with the window open, wait 1-2 minutes (2 is better), then try to open the door from the inside. should set the alarm off.

worth mentioning, i coded the car to flash / beep when alarm is turned on / off.

also i added a shock sensor (quite an easy mod).

so the alarm on my car is now much better then the standard setup

Dr. George wrote

This is a great forum. I get my E9x coupe on Wednesday. When I bought the car I knew it did not have an alarm. The original 2011 MSRP was $72000! I find it disappointing that one of the best cars in the world does not come with an alarm at that price. That said, is it worth getting a BMW factory alarm for a four year old car?Are these 2011 M3s prewired for alarms?

jphughan said it correctly. For US spec models, they stopped in production year mid-late 2010. My 2011 MY was produced in 12/2010 and was not prewired.

You can modify it for a significant cost or get the module on EAS that enables the clown light to blink. From what I can tell it cannot be coded to blink so I'm not sure how the EAS module allows it to blink.

I have not looked at aftermarket alarms so I don't know about those. I'm not fond of having a separate fob for the alarm and one for the key.

Here's the link for the EAS module
http://europeanautosource.com/mods4cars-remotekey-window-control-module.html

I do not know anyone with this module so I would call to confirm functionality if this option is desired.

Heard wiring aftermarket one is pita on these cars. Had an 08 that was prewired luckily and just added it myself

Mine is 2008 build and I am pretty sure is wired for alarm, what else do I need to purchase to have it function???

Ryguy29 wrote

Mine is 2008 build and I am pretty sure is wired for alarm, what else do I need to purchase to have it function???

There is a diy on here, pretty easy. It has a motion sensor that goes in the headliner area and a siren in the front wheel well.

My car didn't have the OEM alarm pre-wired or installed as well. Really pissed me off. So I went to EAS and had them install their alarm emulator and an OEM clown nose mirror. Now everything is all good at a fraction of the price of the factory alarm system...and my mirror blinks when armed too! haha

anom3 wrote  

are you sure it has no alarm?

just saying... i thought mine did not as well, mainly because:

a) the stock setup (at least in EU) does not flash or "beep" when you turn on /off the alarm.

b) the stock setup DOES NOT have a "shock" sensor.

due to the 2 above, it was a bit tricky to set the alarm off to actually see if it was working.

the only way to test it was to lock the car with the window open, wait 1-2 minutes (2 is better), then try to open the door from the inside. should set the alarm off.

worth mentioning, i coded the car to flash / beep when alarm is turned on / off.

also i added a shock sensor (quite an easy mod).

so the alarm on my car is now much better then the standard setup

Unless EU cars are different, the manual would tell you that you can set off the alarm by locking the car with the fob and then holding the fob's Trunk button down for at least 3 seconds. You also didn't need to use coding the way you did, since iDrive (or the BC stalk on non-iDrive cars) allows you to configure the alarm acknowledgement behavior between flash lights, beep, flash + beep, or nothing at all. I only used coding because I wanted to have it flash + beep when locking but not when unlocking, but in the iDrive/BC interface the selected behavior applies to both locking and unlocking. And lastly, you would be able to tell whether you have an alarm by simply seeing whether the clown nose blinks when you lock the car, no need for any of what I'm talking about or your testing -- unless you were worried that there was some issue that would prevent the alarm from actually triggering?

Not sure about the shock sensor (thought it would obviously be there, but the manual doesn't mention one...), but the alarm definitely has inclination and interior movement sensors. There's even a specific way to arm the alarm such that those sensors remain disabled, as you might want to do when having the car towed, leaving pets inside, or putting your car on a ferry (for EU people) -- also described in the manual. Might want to check that thing out.

BzsBimmer wrote

You can modify it for a significant cost or get the module on EAS that enables the clown light to blink. From what I can tell it cannot be coded to blink so I'm not sure how the EAS module allows it to blink.

Here's the link for the EAS module
http://europeanautosource.com/mods4cars-remotekey-window-control-module.html

If I had to guess, EAS modifies the car's VO to indicate that an alarm is installed, and then the module emulates the alarm to prevent the car throwing codes, similar to the EDC emulator that KW sells with their coilovers.

Ryguy29 wrote

Mine is 2008 build and I am pretty sure is wired for alarm, what else do I need to purchase to have it function???

An alarm...

Here's the DIY
http://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150766&highlight=alarm

Flying Ace wrote

An alarm...

jphughan wrote

If I had to guess, EAS modifies the car's VO to indicate that an alarm is installed, and then the module emulates the alarm to prevent the car throwing codes, similar to the EDC emulator that KW sells with their coilovers.

No modification to the VO is made at all, this simply simulates the factory alarm by blinking the LED on the mirror and meant as a deterrent.

Alarm or not - once the damage is done, neither are very effective.

tom @ eas wrote  

jphughan wrote

If I had to guess, EAS modifies the car's VO to indicate that an alarm is installed, and then the module emulates the alarm to prevent the car throwing codes, similar to the EDC emulator that KW sells with their coilovers.

No modification to the VO is made at all, this simply simulates the factory alarm by blinking the LED on the mirror and meant as a deterrent.

Alarm or not - once the damage is done, neither are very effective.

Nice, very clean and simple solution then.

Agreed on the post-damage situation. If the alarm hadn't been part of my Convenience Package and I'd known about this (or it could be coded like the R56 MINI allows), I would likely have gone this route. I don't think I'm saving anything on my insurance from having an alarm because at least while I have BMW Assist, I have stolen vehicle recovery, which puts me into a higher discount bracket anyway. But if I didn't have that (and I probably won't after the prepaid 4 years expires), I suppose the cost of the alarm as a separate option might be recovered in insurance savings if you kept the car for several years.

jphughan wrote

Never bothered to look at them. BMWs have sufficiently complicated and expensive-to-fix electronics without adding aftermarket stuff into the mix IMHO.

Says the man with a Modmynav backup camera in his sig

Ryguy29 wrote

Mine is 2008 build and I am pretty sure is wired for alarm, what else do I need to purchase to have it function???

Flying Ace wrote

An alarm...

Here's the DIY
http://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150766&highlight=alarm

IIRC, as I did this as well, you have to have the car coded for the alarm, as well.

In all honestly, the most time-consuming part was removing the tire, etc to get to the space to mount the siren. Everything else was very, very easy.

whats77inaname wrote

Says the man with a Modmynav backup camera in his sig

Ha! Well that doesn't need to integrate with nearly as much stuff as an alarm would. The ModMyNav camera was just a couple of plug and play harnesses, plus one wire tap on the reverse lamp wire since I have 6MT -- and actually a more recent version has an even simpler harness setup than mine. A good aftermarket alarm on the other hand would need to integrate with the ECU/fuel pump to have an immobilizer, have intrusion sensors on the doors, hood, and trunk, shock sensors for the windows, maybe inclination and interior movement sensors like the OEM kit has, and of course the noisemaking part itself. That's a bit more extensive.

jphughan wrote

A good aftermarket alarm on the other hand would need to integrate with the ECU/fuel pump to have an immobilizer, have intrusion sensors on the doors, hood, and trunk, shock sensors for the windows, maybe inclination and interior movement sensors like the OEM kit has, and of course the noisemaking part itself. That's a bit more extensive.

Intrusions sensor on the doors and trunk aren't necessary, as most alarms use harnesses that tie into the dome light/trunk light that come on when they are opened, and the same hood pin that let's you know the hood is open ties into the alarm brain. Yeah, it's a bit more of a pain for some of the extra bits, but as tech has increased, the remaining sensors are *tiny* and easily hidden and and installed. I'll grant that it's more extensive, but it's pretty straightforward, and something I would tackle provided a clear set of instructions were included.

I would say only OE

Mine is a 2012 and has it

My window sticker says it was prewired for an alarm. Plus the dealer I bought it from already installed LoJack. So if I wanted, I could call up and activate it.