{"id":3670,"date":"2019-12-18T22:38:43","date_gmt":"2019-12-18T22:38:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mukerji.co.uk\/?p=3670"},"modified":"2019-12-18T22:38:43","modified_gmt":"2019-12-18T22:38:43","slug":"bmw-key-fob-battery-replacement-and-car-association","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mukerji.co.uk\/bmw-key-fob-battery-replacement-and-car-association\/","title":{"rendered":"BMW Key FOB Battery Replacement and Car Association"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The X5 came with two keys, both of which physically operate the locks and ignition, but only one of which communicated with the car remotely. Today I successfully managed to bring it back to life in two phases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First of all, I’ve replaced the battery. This involves cracking the key open, desolding the old battery, soldering in a new one, then gluing the key shut again. The first part – cracking the key open – is the hardest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Initially I thought I could do it with a small flat head screwdriver, but all that did was damage the key plastic. It turns out these things are glued together, so I needed to take a Stanley knife and firmly cut through around one edge. Then I could get a screwdriver in and pop the unit open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The soldering part was straight forward. I used some generic glue to bond the key part together and left it gently squeezed in a vice for half an hour to go off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Having done all this, I was pretty gutted to discover that the key didn’t work. I wondered if I needed to re-associate the key and the car in some way. In fact, thinking about it now, maybe that’s all I needed to do anyway, but a new battery is a good thing either way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I found a variety of instructions online, and I think this was the best of them, but I’ll document my process here for clarity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.youcanic.com\/bmw\/key-programming-resync-procedure<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main gotcha was that I managed to associate the second key just fine, but I then realised I had unwittingly disassociated the other key. So here’s what I did to sort it all out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Put a key (either) into the ignition. Move to position 1. Wait a second. Remove the key.<\/li>
  2. Pick up a key. Hold down the ‘unlock’ button. While it is held, press the ‘lock’ button firmly three times. Release the ‘unlock’ button. The car will lock and unlock.<\/li>
  3. Repeat step (2) with the other key.<\/li>
  4. Insert either key into the ignition, move to position 1, remove the key.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Having done that, both keys now work perfectly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The X5 came with two keys, both of which physically operate the locks and ignition, but only one of which communicated with the car remotely. Today I successfully managed to bring it back to life in two phases. First of all, I’ve replaced the battery. This involves cracking the key open, desolding the old battery, […]  Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,27],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mukerji.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3670"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mukerji.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mukerji.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mukerji.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mukerji.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3670"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mukerji.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3675,"href":"https:\/\/www.mukerji.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3670\/revisions\/3675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mukerji.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mukerji.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mukerji.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}