G29 key fob not working

Nick177 · Post by **Nick177** » Wed Dec 30, 2020 5:58 pm

Yesterday, I had just finished a round of golf. The car had been parked up locked for 3 hours. I pressed the key fob to open the car and nothing happened. I tried a few more times, still no joy. Being a newish owner I didn’t know how to use the manual key, so I looked it up on google, and then just before I tried to open the car manually, I tried the key fob one more time. It worked, panic over!
I got replacement batteries from BMW at a cost of £3 each and all was well.
My wife innocently said to me maybe the key fob is designed to work/not work/work as a sign of low battery power.
When thinking about it she could well be right.
Has anyone else had this experience?

Z4monster · Post by **Z4monster** » Wed Dec 30, 2020 8:11 pm

I've had my car get seemingly confused when unlocking and the car not responding to the key. I left it a few minutes and tried again and all was OK. Didn't change the batteries and it has been fine since. Maybe there was a strong signal blocking it temporarily?

Swiftly · Post by **Swiftly** » Wed Dec 30, 2020 8:49 pm

When my key fob battery required changing after 11 months, I got an iDrive vehicle key battery discharged message. I popped into the dealers and mentioned the error to them and they replaced the battery free of charge as the car is under warranty.

Nick177 · Post by **Nick177** » Wed Dec 30, 2020 9:34 pm

Swiftly wrote: ↑Wed Dec 30, 2020 8:49 pm When my key fob battery required changing after 11 months, I got an iDrive vehicle key battery discharged message. I popped into the dealers and mentioned the error to them and they replaced the battery free of charge as the car is under warranty.

That’s interesting, I never got any messages from iDrive, mind you, I wasn’t looking for any! And I didn’t get my new batteries under warranty.

Swiftly · Post by **Swiftly** » Wed Dec 30, 2020 10:12 pm

Nick177 wrote: ↑Wed Dec 30, 2020 9:34 pm
Swiftly wrote: ↑Wed Dec 30, 2020 8:49 pm When my key fob battery required changing after 11 months, I got an iDrive vehicle key battery discharged message. I popped into the dealers and mentioned the error to them and they replaced the battery free of charge as the car is under warranty.
That’s interesting, I never got any messages from iDrive, mind you, I wasn’t looking for any! And I didn’t get my new batteries under warranty.

This was the error message I received

: 20201115.png (94.79 KiB) Viewed 833 times

Wyldie85 · Post by **Wyldie85** » Wed Dec 30, 2020 11:15 pm

Was going to say, when did you last use it? Have had the same issue this week. Went out to the car and nothing. Comfort access works but only the drivers door. Half hour drive and it worked again but only for a short time. Seems to be that it needs to be used to keep the charge.

Nick177 · Post by **Nick177** » Thu Dec 31, 2020 12:16 am

Wyldie85 wrote: ↑Wed Dec 30, 2020 11:15 pm Was going to say, when did you last use it? Have had the same issue this week. Went out to the car and nothing. Comfort access works but only the drivers door. Half hour drive and it worked again but only for a short time. Seems to be that it needs to be used to keep the charge.
[/quote
I purchased the car in June with 13 miles on the clock, it had sat at the dealers for 9 months and I’ve been running it nearly every day for the last 6 months, it’s done over 4K miles, so I was a bit surprised that the key fob battery needed replacing.

Jim S · Post by **Jim S** » Thu Dec 31, 2020 4:01 pm

I had to replace the key fob batteries 5 times in the first 13 months of ownership. It is now 7 months since I last replaced one of the batteries. I think the recent software updates may have corrected the problem in early production cars like mine (April 2019).

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