# BMW Assist Expired



## MonacoJoe (Jan 30, 2012)

My BMW Assist expired and now I am pondering whether to re-up or not. What is the community consensus about this service? Worth it or not? I'd appreciate your opinions and personal experience. Did you sign back up once your subscription expired?


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## dealio (Mar 8, 2012)

it saved my ass once when I manage to lock my self out of a running car. google maps send-to-car feature is very useful, but not sure if $200/year useful

but really, how often did YOU used it? with 4 years experience there is no better judge


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## MonacoJoe (Jan 30, 2012)

I bought a CPO in December and the service ran out in May; so I never had an opportunity to utilize its services.


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## gpburdell (Sep 23, 2012)

I recently bought a CPO and have almost a year left on the BMW Assist Safety Plan.

The automatic collision notification is a safety feature that I hope never to use, but it could be a lifesaver in the right circumstances. Its value is dependent on your driving circumstances; someone who often drives remote rural roads at night might see a higher value than someone who only drives in the daytime and never leaves the suburbs. 

The other features? Tough call. It's pretty neat to be able to remotely unlock or lock your car from an iphone app, but I'm not sure there's much value to me in being able to do that. Using Google's Send-to-Car is nice, as is Google Local Search from the iphone app -- these were nice on a recent out of town trip, especially when the friends we were going to meet changed the restaurant at the last minute. I just looked up the new restaurant on the BMW Remote App, clicked Send to Vehicle, and had the address in the car ready for the nav system to give me directions by the time we walked out to the car from our hotel room. 

On the other hand, without BMW Assist I could have looked up the destinations on my phone, clicked Add to Contacts, then pulled up the contact in iDrive after it'd picked up the new contact over the phone bluetooth connection and done the same thing. 

I suppose the vehicle position part would be handy in a busy shopping mall parking lot if you couldn't otherwise remember where you parked, but I've never had any issues with that. 

So will I spend $200 to renew the plan next year? Right now I'm not sure I would.


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## thumper_330 (Jan 3, 2009)

I've had my car for a year... brand new... so I've still got my "freebie" service, so take my prattling here with that in mind 

Honestly, I have had no need of it and haven't used it. The ability to "send to car" from Google Maps is cool, but a fundamentally useless feature in much the same way that I find the Facebook and Twitter integration cool but useless. I use both... but not when I'm driving!

However, having said that I will be the first to admit that I do like the knowledge that in the event some idiot (even myself) puts me in a position where my airbags deploy and I am unconscious, a little "red light" will go on somewhere and they are contractually bound to attempt to get a hold of me. That peace of mind and security... well that's kinda nice to be honest. I never thought I'd say that; I figured it'd be something I would just shrug off... but I've had a number of close calls over the years and after some health problems earlier this year (crippling pain in the stomach; had I been driving I might well have crashed...) that thankfully turned up nothing permanently damaging I must admit that I do like the idea that if I had the same problems while driving I could reach up and press a button to summon help. The fact that I don't need to know where I am just adds to that.

Of course, I also ride a motorcycle a lot of the time... so maybe conflicting priorities a little bit. But suffice to say I think I'll be renewing. Hell, $200 a year is less than $20 a month; I spend more than that on coffee! I'm driving a car that's worth a lot of money... I am able to because I am financially in a position where I can afford to do so. If $16 a month is a hardship then perhaps BMW ownership is not for you?


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## SD ///M4 (Jan 24, 2011)

One point to add to the discussion. If the BMW Assist service is allowed to lapse for some period of time (I don't know how long this period is) the phone number assigned to your vehicle for BMW Assist is reassigned. When this happens, the TCU (Telematics Control Unit) must be reinitialized. This is spelled out in SI B84 22 05:

"The embedded phone in the Telematics Control Unit (TCU) is deactivated with the wireless carrier if the subscriber has allowed BMW Assist™ services to lapse, has declined the services, or was never enrolled.

Upon completion of an Electronic Subscriber Agreement (ESA), a new Mobile Identification Number (MIN) and Mobile Device Number (MDN) will be automatically assigned and then displayed on the DCSnet Vehicle Service History for 2 weeks."​
Following re-enrollment and during this 2 week period, a procedure must be performed in order to reactivate BMW Assist and is spelled out in several different attachments, depending on the year and model of the vehicle. The previous owner had let BMW Assist lapse about two years before I bought the car. After I had paid the $199 to re-enroll my 2006 Z4 M Roadster, the forms printed out with a separate warning that the TCU had been deactivated and referred to the bulletin for the procedure on how to re-initialize the TCU. I was informed by the dealer that to do this procedure it would be an additional $175. I said some choice words and left.

I paid $30 for a 24 hour subscription to BMW TIS, found the bulletin and the relevant attachments, and did the re-initialization myself. (If I had searched a little harder on the Internet I would have found the same information for free.) For my 2006 Z4 M Roadster, this consisted merely of pressing the two BMW Assist buttons in my car simultaneously for 10 seconds. The car then automatically made two test calls and the unit was re-initialized. (Note: these are the same two calls, *22890 and *22891, that you make to your wireless provider if you want to reprogram and/or update the roaming capabilities on your cell phone!) The dealer wanted $175 to do that. It took me all of 5 minutes (the bulletin specifies 40 minutes for my car!) As a bonus, I downloaded every single SIB for my car and my wife's car during the BMW TIS enrollment period.

So be aware that there may be an additional cost to re-initialize the TCU if you let BMW Assist lapse and decide to re-subscribe at a later date.

That said, after I re-enrolled I discovered that there were three important features of current BMW Assist that didn't work with my year and model: the Automatic Collision Notification, the Remote Door Unlock, and MyInfo, which is the ability to send locations to your car from Google Maps. Roadside Assistance is still provided, and given that the Z4 M Roadsters come with non-run flat tires and the M Mobility Kit, it may be worth it to have the car flatbedded to a dealer if I ever get a flat tire. I probably won't renew it though, as a AAA Premier membership is less.


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## ndabunka (May 31, 2009)

I just bought a new X5d and apparently I have 4 years of coverage included. Maybe this is standard now? I think it was only 1 year when I bought the 7-series so 4 years of coverage for no additional $s seems like a great deal.


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