thanks for the quick feedback. I had seen those responses as well. Really trying to figure out next steps. Hopefully the weather cooperates this evening and I can get it sorted tomorrow before the second wave of snow is supposed to get here on Saturday.

As far as the doors locking and everything going dark it was a symptom of the battery being dead. Based on that and the 'strength' of my portable charger I felt that direct contact to the battery would be my best chance. I think the idea behind the countdown would be to discourage thieves from being able to get the car going anywhere for ten minutes in the situation they were trying to steal it by disarming the alarm via the battery. Which is absurd because the fuse for the alarm is accessible right inside the panel and the battery requires moving a few things around to get to and then taking out 4 bolts to access.

Guess I'll play with the countdown tomorrow and post my outcome. I have seen a solution that involves puling the alarm fuse and entering the sequence manually but at that rate I'd just assume paying the shop the 2 hours to re-code rather than sit there punching in numbers for 3-4 hours.

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This has been a long obsession.
Current Cars- 2006 X5 3.0, 2013 328i Xdrive Msport
Previous Cars- 2007 328i, 2007 Z4 3.0si, 2006 330ci, 1985 325e and a sampling of Fiats, Volvos and VWS along the way.