HELP

[JasBib]

Drove to the grocery store, locked the car, came back out, and the car wont unlock. Tried unlocking mechanically with the key and the mechanism wont budge even a bit. Cracked open the fob key and changed the battery and still nothing. Had a tow truck come unlock the doors and pulling the handle from the inside and nothing will open. Finally managed to pop the hood and hook up a battery pack and still nothing works, not even the inside handle!!!!!!!!!

The front passenger side orange lights and rear right side side lights are on as well. Tomorrow I’ll get some booster cables and try again. Its about -10 degrees celcius outside but the car was running just fine until now.

What is going on!!!!????

[andrewwynn]

The door is doubled locked. You need to hold the central lock down while pulling the door handle to be able to unlock the door.

Almost NEVER is the key fob battery related to it's failure to operate.

[andrewwynn]

The corner lights are on because your turn signal is on. When left on it keeps the corner lights on dimly to help visibility at night. They will kill the battery though.

The repair for the key cylinder is $9 on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MQQQE80..._9ChiCb4Q8P81V

I just ordered for wife's X5. Replaced mine a month ago.

Don't worry about the reviews mentioning the roll pin doesn't fit, it's not needed I don't bother putting in the pin, the design locks the part in without the pin

[JasBib]

“Hold the central lock down.” Meaning pushing the lock button on the fob key while pulling on the handle? Why would none of the lights flicker or any other door open while I unlock from the fob or why would the front passenger door not open when pulling on the inside handle twice?

Should I just restore the original battery back into the fob? Was the tower’s battery pack no good? The alarm rang when I popped the hood but only flashed when he plugged his charger on the terminals.

Why would BMW allow this situation to even happen?!?! Batteries do occasionally die!

[andrewwynn]

The backup for the battery dying is the key cylinder, so it's important that you test that occasionally.

You can't use an off the shelf battery inside the key is a rechargeable battery.

When you lock the car from outside the doors are double locked, this disconnects the door handles from the lock mechanism on both inside and outside.

The central lock button is the button next to the emergency flasher button in the center console.

BMW built in an emergency escape in case you for example locked somebody inside the car they can escape.

The process is to hold the central lock button at the same time as you pull an inside door lock. You will trigger the alarm if you open the door of course.

You need to have power to the car battery to get the key in the ignition to disable the alarm.

If your key cylinder is broken remove it you can turn with your finger until you replace the broken part

[JasBib]

I went back today and tried something I read elsewhere online by pulling on the handle while turning the key in the cylinder which worked perfectly. Even though the lights were still on the car started no problem. This is the first car I’ve seen where you need to pull on the handle to unlock...having recently bought it, its all new to me.

Now I need to figure out whats wrong with the fob key, any ideas? I’ve changed the battery to a 3 volt of the same size, having seen youtube videos where that worked but not for mine! Do I need to buy a whole new key set and reprogram?

[andrewwynn]

You need to reprogram the fob after several reasons including dead car battery. Find the steps online it's basically shut all the doors, cycle the locks locked then unlocked, put in the key turn to on not start, remove the key and within 5 seconds hold one button on the key while tap tap tap the other it will lock and unlock the doors if successful. Within five more seconds repeat with any other keys.

If your key cylinder isn't working you need to repair it's not terribly difficult but the spring is 8/10 hard so have a helper and make it 3/10

[andrewwynn]

The pull on the handle to unlock is something I've never heard of that sounds like a workaround to help a broken part.

If your key turns with more or less difficulty CW vs CCW, the cylinder bits are toast and you should replace them.





That's the part that breaks and what a fixed lock cylinder looks like.

[Qsilver7]

Just to ditto what you've already been told and add some verification from the owners manual and other info...lifting the door handle while turning the key in the driver's door lock cylinder to the emergency UNLOCK position is the procedure that was designed for old BMWs from the 80s & early 90s (like the e24/e30/e32/e34). BMW changed the emergency unlock procedure with the next gen BMWs (e38/e39/e36/e46/e53) where you only need to turn the key in the driver's exterior lock cylinder counter clockwise.

If you needed to lift the handle...something is wrong with your lock cylinder.

{e32/e34 emergency unlock procedure from owners manual}


{e53 emergency unlock procedure from owners manual}

Anytime you lock your BMW using the remote fob or the driver's door exterior lock cylinder...you put the car in DOUBLE LOCK. As previously mentioned, this disables the exterior & interior door lock handles. This means if a thief breaks your window to gain access or steal anything...they will have to crawl through the broken glass to get into and out of the car because they won't be able to just reach in and pull an interior door handle.

The owners manual provides the emergency unlock procedure for this scenario...and below the instructions are highlighted in some BMW documentation about the central locking system...and info about single-lock and double-lock: