BMW disabled my Sat Nav unit

[Oortam]

Sorry for the long winded post. I had my 440i in for servicing at an independant specialist near Edinburgh. After the service I noticed the sat nav wouldn't open. Went back to the garage and after connecting it to a laptop, he confirmed that it had been disabled by BMW. He had to access the BMW system using BMW software to update my service record and it turned out that BMW had "noticed" there was something unusual in the sat nav security certificate so they had disabled it "to prevent theft". BMW didn't notify the specialist what they had done. I have had the car from new in december 2016 and it is the original sat nav unit. It has been serviced at a BMW dealer until the warranty ended, then serviced at a different specialist previously with no problem. The specialist raised a "ticket" that there was a problem and I took the car in for BMW to look into it. The car was connected for a full day while BMW "looked into it". At the end of the day the BMW help desk couldn't fix it and recommended it was escalated up a level to have somebody senior look into it. This dragged on a bit with no action from BMW. The independant specialist then paid to have the incident escalated but no action from BMW. BMW then deleted the "ticket" and returned the fee for escalating the incident. Basically washing their hands of it. The independant specialist, who has been very helpful and patient through all of this then contacted a coding specialist in the midlands who after a couple of interventions managed to replace the security certificate and get the sat nav working again. The BMW software guys have acted despicably in this. In order to update service records you have to purchase and use their software. They decided that I must be using a stolen sat nav so they disable it and don't tell me. They then leave me unable to use equipment I paid for when I bought the car and left me with no option but to pay somebody else to fix it.
I would like to write to a senior figure in BMW to express my feelings on how they treat there customers. I'd be grateful if anybody could pass on details of somebody in BMW Europe I could contact. The BMW software guys are based in Germany.

[Downward]

Use Waze.

[Pica-Pica]

The Sat Nav is covered for its first 3 years. Then map updates have to be paid for annually.

[bigandclever]

Pica-Pica said:

The Sat Nav is covered for its first 3 years. Then map updates have to be paid for annually.

Would that disable sat nav in it's entirety though? I wouldn't have thought so.

[Grumps.]

Nearly all the manufacturers built in sat jabs are crap compared to google and waze, but I would be a bit miffed if BMW had disabled in on my car.

Just seems very odd that they would randomly disable a sat nav function, assuming the head unit is what came in the car when new.

[surveyor_101]

You complained to BMW customer services in the country you bought the car?

If you the first owner the history of the unit should be simple.

Unfortunately this is going to happen a lot, I believe Tesla started this over the air updates and any non genuine changes can be reversed.

The BMW connected services requires a subscription do you pay?


I have heard of tesla doing the same over the air, one person has a Model S P60 battery failed and tesla fitted a 90 battery as thats what they had. 3 years later a software update and new owner had enjoyed 300 mile range of the 90, after a service and a forced software update tesla noticed its 90 in a 60 and wound the range back to 240 so it can only use 60kwh.

[Hub]

bigandclever said:

Pica-Pica said:

The Sat Nav is covered for its first 3 years. Then map updates have to be paid for annually.

Would that disable sat nav in it's entirety though? I wouldn't have thought so.

Maybe if you update the mapping but not through BMW?

[Grumps.]

Oortam said:

Sorry for the long winded post. I had my 440i in for servicing at an independant specialist near Edinburgh. After the service I noticed the sat nav wouldn't open. Went back to the garage and after connecting it to a laptop, he confirmed that it had been disabled by BMW. He had to access the BMW system using BMW software to update my service record and it turned out that BMW had "noticed" there was something unusual in the sat nav security certificate so they had disabled it "to prevent theft". BMW didn't notify the specialist what they had done. I have had the car from new in december 2016 and it is the original sat nav unit. It has been serviced at a BMW dealer until the warranty ended, then serviced at a different specialist previously with no problem. The specialist raised a "ticket" that there was a problem and I took the car in for BMW to look into it. The car was connected for a full day while BMW "looked into it". At the end of the day the BMW help desk couldn't fix it and recommended it was escalated up a level to have somebody senior look into it. This dragged on a bit with no action from BMW. The independant specialist then paid to have the incident escalated but no action from BMW. BMW then deleted the "ticket" and returned the fee for escalating the incident. Basically washing their hands of it. The independant specialist, who has been very helpful and patient through all of this then contacted a coding specialist in the midlands who after a couple of interventions managed to replace the security certificate and get the sat nav working again. The BMW software guys have acted despicably in this. In order to update service records you have to purchase and use their software. They decided that I must be using a stolen sat nav so they disable it and don't tell me. They then leave me unable to use equipment I paid for when I bought the car and left me with no option but to pay somebody else to fix it.
I would like to write to a senior figure in BMW to express my feelings on how they treat there customers. I'd be grateful if anybody could pass on details of somebody in BMW Europe I could contact. The BMW software guys are based in Germany.

Ignoring my previous post, are you sure you are using genuine maps etc?

Not sure how BMWs work with nav updates etc

[Danm1les]

Pica-Pica said:

The Sat Nav is covered for its first 3 years. Then map updates have to be paid for annually.

They don't block it though, it just doesn't get updated for free.

[Oortam]

I got updates for the first 3 years for the maps for the sat nav. After that I haven't updates the maps, google maps is better. However, I switch on the map function when I drive on the city bypass as I get warning of congestion ahead and that is useful. There has to be a se4rial number of the physical sat nav unit that they could check, rather than relying in a digital certificate which could get corrupted, as what probably happened in my case. The sat nav security certificate seemed to have a date of 2009, rather than 2016 which is when the car was built. I'm annoyed that their first course of action was to disable the unit rather than querie it with the garage and the customer. It could all have been cleared up quickly rather than the two months it took to get fixed by the back door.

[bigdom]

Just switch to Waze, if there's traffic on whatever bypass you mention, it will avoid it anyway. It runs on google maps (google bought them in 2013), then overlays traffic information. You become a 'Wazer'. As part of the community, it feeds back data in the background, you can have a passenger feed in thing like an accident/road works etc.

You can preplan journeys, it will notify of traffic issues and revise depart time, I don't know anyone who doesn't use it as their default sat nav.

I've not used the BMW navigation for probably 10 years. Apart from one time circa 2018, when there was a data outage in Europe one Friday afternoon in August when I was traveling down to the South of France, it's useful to have a backup.

[boxedin]

Was the satnav on the factory order / build list?

Find a BMW VIN decoder and check the satnav/navigation was part of the original build.

If so, go back to a BMW dealer and get it re-enabled. - Oh, you've paid someone to code it back in!

You might get more information by asking over on the bimmerpost forums. They may have come across this before.

[E-bmw]

As I am not 100% sure if you have done this or not, don't know if this is the issue but what about this as a scenario?

You buy car with NAV.

You use non-bmw software to update it.

bmw then become aware of this & disable it so that it can't interfere with anything else that is using genuine bmw software as it is all on a shared "bus".

[Pica-Pica]

Danm1les said:

Pica-Pica said:

The Sat Nav is covered for its first 3 years. Then map updates have to be paid for annually.

They don't block it though, it just doesn't get updated for free.

Yes, I know.

[Oortam]

There seems to be a lack of understanding. I bought a BMW car from BMW with a sat nav as an option. I updated the maps as allowed in the warranty period. After the warranty period ended I did not update the maps. I had it serviced by a BMW main dealer with no problem with the sat nav. I had it serviced with a BMW independant specialist with no problem with the sat nav. I then had it serviced with a different BMW specialist and suddenly my original sat nav doesn't have a valid security certificate so BMW disable my sat nav. I don't really use the sat nav as I know where I'm going so it isn't really a problem but my car has been devalued as I no longer have a sat nav. Are BMW justified in deleting an option I paid for when I ordered the car with the specification I wanted? Does anybody have contact details for somebody with any influence at BMW who I can contact to highlight the issues?

[darreni]

It seems a coincidence that the nav stopped working after the indie had worked on it. Are you sure it’s not connected?

[Pica-Pica]

Oortam said:

There seems to be a lack of understanding. I bought a BMW car from BMW with a sat nav as an option. I updated the maps as allowed in the warranty period. After the warranty period ended I did not update the maps. I had it serviced by a BMW main dealer with no problem with the sat nav. I had it serviced with a BMW independant specialist with no problem with the sat nav. I then had it serviced with a different BMW specialist and suddenly my original sat nav doesn't have a valid security certificate so BMW disable my sat nav. I don't really use the sat nav as I know where I'm going so it isn't really a problem but my car has been devalued as I no longer have a sat nav. Are BMW justified in deleting an option I paid for when I ordered the car with the specification I wanted? Does anybody have contact details for somebody with any influence at BMW who I can contact to highlight the issues?

Does the mapping still work or is it just the navigation?
Do you have ‘my BMW’ app, and can you locate your car with it?
Have you pressed the emergency call button, and is that working?
Essentially, is the GPS SIM still working?

[SteBrown91]

darreni said:

It seems a coincidence that the nav stopped working after the indie had worked on it. Are you sure it’s not connected?

This.

I think you are getting mad at the wrong person/company.

How did the second specialist update the service record? Did they try and manually add the service into the iDrive? IIRC it should be submitted to the BMW service portal and the iDrive downloads the information to the car.

[AutoClouseau]

Had similar when I added CarPlay to car by a specialist aftermarket coder.
Next time the car was in BMW, they updated the comms software and as it had a non original programme uploaded, it wouldn't allow the BMW update and made the satnav brick.
Took it back to the coder and they re loaded the software their end with CarPlay and everything went back to normal.

BMW don't like you playing it seems,

[Grumps.]

As far as I know, most manufacturers will update the operating system if there is one available and any hooky software or coding modifications would be lost as the car gets reset according to the build code with what it came out of the factory with.