Reason #485 why BMWs suck.

[Coronita]

Apparently, if a tiny 15 amp blows on the 5 series with advance key, you won’t be able to open any of the locked doors from the inside, even if you try to pull the door handle twice because the brilliant Bavarian Motor Works engineers decided that it would be a cool anti-theft feature to prevent the physical door handle from being pryed open when the keyless system is locked….

I guess they didn’t think about the scenario that if a fuse blows or your battery dies and you’re inside the car, you literally would be locked inside the car unable to get out. Fortunely, I was able to roll down the window and use the physical key from the door handle on the outside…

oh, and the geniuses at BMW decided to tuck the fuse box behind the glove compartment behind a tiny small access door, and use the tiniest fuses for the central locking system tuck recessed between a relay and a nice big plug, making pulling the damn fuse out hard, and putting a new one back in even harder….especially when you can’t open the freaking passenger door to give yourself more room to work …. Because the fuse that blew controls the central locking system…..

5 minute fuse replacement job that ends up being around 2 hours….typical BMW….

I know I know.. first world problem ….

[ucodegen]

Its not just a BMW problem. None of the manufacturers seem to be thinking about what happens when things go wrong. The feel that going all electric on all of the controls is a good idea… The result is things like

Car catching on fire and then the parking brake releases, transmission goes into neutral – because there are no ‘physical’ connections to the parking brakes nor transmission any more. It is all done with electrical circuits.

There is even a report of a Mini Cooper trying to start when it caught on fire.

Car has electrical fire, starting in the dashboard and the doors will not unlock (in some cars, the door latch itself is also electrical). Corvette door latches are electrical, Kia locks can be disabled by the electrical fires that are the subject of a recent recall.

NOTE: I’m not an anti-tech Luddite. I first started programming computers at 14 years of age, graduated EECE, was principal/chief engineer in a defense contractor. I saw/reviewed code from some software engineers that I would not want to trust my life with, and this is in a defense contracting firm with requirements like DOD-STD-2167/MIL-STD-498 for mission critical software. (2167 was superseded by 498, then by IEEE 12207)

[spdrun]

Report this to NHTSA as a safety defect. Being trapped inside the car with power gone is a safety issue. The “team” of engineers, accountants, and marketeers who specified this need a collective punch in the groin. This is idiotic as an anti-theft feature … if someone wants in to the car, they’ll just break a window.

As far as being a Luddite … we need more Luddism in engineering. Ludd-Ludd-Luddudd! Having a cumpuker control every critical system with no manual override or physical interlock is a Therac-25 level of stupidity.

[Coronita]

[img_assist|nid=27279|title=fusebox|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=500|height=500]

This is how retarded BMW decided to put the fuse box…

It sits a few inches behind the glove box opening, with a tiny access door.

See the really tiny fuses on the right side next to the black relay. The odd looking blue one 2nd from the bottom was the one I had to replace.

Try pulling that one out with your hands or a fuse puller is like really really difficult. I ended up taking out the yellow fuse right below it first with a pair of pliers and then had more room to grab the blue one.

And then trying to put both of them back in was a pain in the ass because the black relay on the left and the large cable harness on the right doesn’t give you a lot of room to work with even with a pair of pliers…And you can’t move around to position yourself when you can’t open the passenger door…

I was finally able to squeeze in the blue fuse after trying for a long time, and that was enough to open the passenger door…Then spent the rest of my time putting in the yellow fuse with half my body sticking out.

Who thinks of this shit? “Oh, let’s put the fuse box in the most obscure and difficult to reach location for even people with smaller hands, just so we can charge $200/hr for a technician to do it…” I’m sure there’s probably some special BMW fuse puller tool that probably costs $1000 just to change a fuse.

[svelte]

I decided that I would start carrying a hammer in my newer cars but have not done so yet. Thanks for the reminder.

One of my great fears is being trapped in a car that is on fire, under water, etc…

[spdrun]

^^^ to beat the people who misdesigned the fucking thing after you get out? Reason #3254543634 not to own a post-2010 car unless there’s a compelling reason to, like it’s electric. Or to get the most basic econobox possible.

[Coronita]

[quote=svelte]I decided that I would start carrying a hammer in my newer cars but have not done so yet. Thanks for the reminder.

One of my great fears is being trapped in a car that is on fire, under water, etc…[/quote]

I don’t know. My other much newer car doesn’t have this problem. It also has a keyless ignition (standard, I tried to get one without it), and it doesn’t jam the door lock so you cant get out.

And my other BMW that is just 1 year older without the advanced key doesn’t have any problems.

It must be the advanced key + the soft touch door close on this car. Really surprised they made it this complicated… Well then again, I’m not surprised. It’s BMW….

These work well..

[svelte]

Yeah I’ve looked at those. I don’t know why I’m not convinced those little things will work. I’m sure not gonna test it on my windows!

But I don’t want to carry a massive hammer either.

Thus the dilemma that leads me to indecision and inaction.

[Coronita]

[quote=svelte]Yeah I’ve looked at those. I don’t know why I’m not convinced those little things will work. I’m sure not gonna test it on my windows!

But I don’t want to carry a massive hammer either.

Thus the dilemma that leads me to indecision and inaction.[/quote]

Nothing is full proof, but I think having something is better than nothing… since these are pretty inexpensive I don’t have a problem getting them first and then replacing them if something is better.

[barnaby33]

So maybe buy an Italian car instead?
Josh

[Author]

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