[owenscj21]

What a rollercoaster of a day yesterday.

From her bedroom window, my daughter watched a car roll up to the house just after 3:00AM. Though it was late (or early), she thought it was her brother ordering some late night food. Blacked out sedan just sat parked for a minute. Then someone sprinted out of the vehicle, lights on the 228i came on and off they went. Stalled it before they could get out of the driveway. Yup.. manual. Restarted and off they both went.

She comes into our room to wake us and we immediately called the police. 3 squad cars were there within 10 minutes. Invited an officer in, told our story and they were gone by 4AM. The car is gone. Forever. For sure!

I have the MYBMW app with an active subscription. I thought... why not just keep sending signals to the car to beep the horn, flash the lights, etc. I did this periodically until about 11AM. I called BMW assist to try and get them to locate the car. No luck. That's when the connection stopped. I couldn't successfully send a command to the car anymore. I thought by this time, it could be in Montreal on a container, in an underground parking garage or at the bottom of Lake Ontario.

By noon, I was able to successfully ping the car again. A couple times. Called BMW Assist with no luck. 3 times BMW tried to locate the vehicle to no avail. A couple more successful pings from the phone, so I called BMW back. This time, they located the vehicle

They called my local police, gave them the coordinates and the police called me from outside my vehicle in less than half an hour. I happened to be on the phone with my insurance agent at the time.

Less than 12 hours from theft to recovery. No visible damage, nothing left in the vehicle and nothing removed. My wallet was in the armrest prior to theft and after recovery. Shame... I know.

Did they park the car and run because of all the horn beeping and flashing?

Anywho... I can't believe it's been recovered. Next steps are to have the vehicle inspected thoroughly and assessed by the insurance company. Depending on the results, I could be back in it in a few days.

[freakystyly]

Ah that sucks! Glad they were able to recover the car, but the headaches involved sound awful. Too bad they didn't just give up at the stick shift.
I'm in Kitchener too... Does the car have keyless entry or did they break in?

[JMcLellan]

Wow, that would be an infuriating experience but glad the car is back and appears to have no damage. How did they manage to get into it, start it up, and drive away?

[Resoelg]

Curious how they were able to get in as well. Update when you can. Glad it was recovered.

[morphomeman]

Around here, people don't bother to steal the entire car anymore, just the catalytic converter. Quick easy money.

[owenscj21]

Originally Posted by freakystyly

Ah that sucks! Glad they were able to recover the car, but the headaches involved sound awful. Too bad they didn't just give up at the stick shift.
I'm in Kitchener too... Does the car have keyless entry or did they break in?

Keyless entry. They nabbed the unprotected FOB signal from inside the house.

The car didn’t even make it out of Kitchener.

[owenscj21]

Originally Posted by morphomeman

Around here, people don't bother to steal the entire car anymore, just the catalytic converter. Quick easy money.

They took the car quicker than you could cut out a converter.

[JMcLellan]

Originally Posted by owenscj21

Keyless entry. They nabbed the unprotected FOB signal from inside the house.

The car didn’t even make it out of Kitchener.

Meaning they went to go open the door and start it with the FOB in close enough range to enable those functions? Or was there some additional technical shenanigans?

[freakystyly]

It's likely some tech someone can buy on amazon these days... thieves around here have mostly been targeting SUVs but it's more often than not a comfort access signal hijack. Comfort access... because clicking a button in your pocket was sooooo difficult.

https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=1995283

The other common one is jumping in the car when someone is warming it up, but that's kind of the owner's fault.

[Kernel Kurtz]

Originally Posted by JMcLellan

Meaning they went to go open the door and start it with the FOB in close enough range to enable those functions? Or was there some additional technical shenanigans?

Typically they do what is called a relay attack which boosts the fob signal and makes the car think the fob is actually within range. This is why you should not leave your key fob near the front door of your house. Best defense is to put it in a Faraday Cage (eg a metal box) when you are at home.

https://driving.ca/features/feature-...-relay-attacks

https://www.wired.com/2017/04/just-p...can-steal-car/

[owenscj21]

Originally Posted by Kernel Kurtz

Typically they do what is called a relay attack which boosts the fob signal and makes the car think the fob is actually within range. This is why you should not leave your key fob near the front door of your house. Best defense is to put it in a Faraday Cage (eg a metal box) when you are at home.

https://driving.ca/features/feature-...-relay-attacks

https://www.wired.com/2017/04/just-p...can-steal-car/

Exactly. Lesson learned. Faraday box ordered so it’s ready before I get the car back.

This is happening more than people think. Wouldn’t ever happen to me though.

[JMcLellan]

Originally Posted by Kernel Kurtz

Typically they do what is called a relay attack which boosts the fob signal and makes the car think the fob is actually within range. This is why you should not leave your key fob near the front door of your house. Best defense is to put it in a Faraday Cage (eg a metal box) when you are at home.

https://driving.ca/features/feature-...-relay-attacks

https://www.wired.com/2017/04/just-p...can-steal-car/

Crazy. Learned something new today. My car is always in my garage behind closed doors unless I am driving it. When I go out of town I hide the fobs on the opposite end of my house. My wife makes fun of me but maybe I should show her this.

[happyjack]

we have key hooks in our mudroom -- which isnt too far from the front door -- where we hang our keys. there has been a recent rash of these types of thefts in our ZIP code. almost all high-value cars in nice neighborhoods.

i purchased a few of these faraday pouches for all of our fobs that hang in the mudroom. they do work. if i put my fob in the pouch then the comfort access will not work.

[hlm2c]

I would highly recommend stashing some apple airtags or similar devices to that somewhere in your vehicle that is not visible (behind some panels in the trunk or main cabin). That way you have another alternate method to determine the location of your car if MYBMW fails.

[msej449]

Well, bear in mind what the alternative is to having the key fob electronically cloned etc - which is to break into the house. The profile may be different in the US, but here in the UK luxury/performance cars are no longer casual thefts: it's professional gangs with an order-book for specific models who survey a target area in search of cars on their 'shopping list'. They already have the buyers ready to hand over cash and take the stolen cars off their hands immediately. This is why most UK insurers give a big discount for cars parked overnight inside a garage - it s 3x less likely to be stolen in the garage compared to parked on the drive.

And what's obvious is that given the effort they've already gone to to build their client 'shopping list', survey the area, and subcontract the actual theft, there's s big incentive for the subcontractors not to be deterred if the cloning doesn't work. Next step is breaking in. However, (again for the UK) the evidence is that they may first try to gain access to the house as a pseudo-official (e.g. from a utility company etc.) or doorstep rep, and get close enough to clone the keys, or even take them, if they're in sight. Police note that houses where there's a lot of building/refurbishment contractors around are particular targets, as someone with a pickup truck and work clothes wandering round the place can always claim they are starting a new job in the area, and got the wrong address.

Police also comment that if you have two sets of keys and lose track of one of them, don't just hope they'll turn up. They may have been taken by one of the above scams, or pickpocketed, then cloned and then returned. It's then much easier and less risky for the thieves to return at their leisure and drive the car away in just a few seconds. The lesson is to track those keys down as soon as you misplace them.

This has been discussed a lot on UK BMW forums and the majority view, I'd say is that (a) If you have one, chuck that junk out of the garage and park the car in there is the most effective anti-theft measure you can take. This should also save money on your insurance. (b) Make sure your mechanical home security is effective - a lot of people have easily-broken front or back doors. This is cost-effective anyway and a good deterrent to home thefts. (c) don't get too hung up about the issue. In the UK the 2 Series is actually below-average levels of theft - the top 10 are mainly the big SUVs: the X5, Range Rover, Land Rover Discovery etc. with the X5 in the top spot most years, alternating with the Audi RS3 which is a favoured criminals' getaway car, apparently.

None of this is to diminish the impact of being a victim of theft however, and my sympathies go out to the OP and daughter.

[ScottBMWdriver]

First, sorry for car being stolen. I say firing squad is reasonable - don’t mess with my Benz or Bimmer! Sarcasm folks but we are car lovers on this site.

I am old and Keys worked so well for years. I locked myself out of the trunk first day of ownership of used bummer because I reset battery. Worse than fobs is car apps…I had a genesis and they advertise - no keys or fob required just your phone - well it was slow and if it was raining you could not use wet finger on iPhone to open car or start car so I retrieved the fob and uses it for remainder of lease.

Good luck with car.

[JMcLellan]

I went ahead and ordered a faraday box for our key fobs. The last couple years there have a been a few nights where some theft was reported in our area. Mainly people are grabbing packages off of doorsteps and rummaging through cars that are unlocked. I think there was 1 or 2 cars that were attempted to be stolen but the thieves couldn't figure it out. But you never know what these turds could do next.

[WolfGTI]

I keep my keys in a metal ammo box.

[owenscj21]

Update...

The thief burnt out the clutch. $4000. Insurance is covering 100%

While it's in shop, I've decided to do some maintenance items and some upgrades.

Oil & Filter
Brake fluid flush
Rear shocks & ball joints
Spark plugs
Intake
Charge pipe
Downpipe
Intercooler
In house FTS Stage 1 Tune

Hoping to have the car back by Friday this week.

[toxaris71]

Glad to hear your car got recovered and insurance is covering the damages. I'm sure the manual transmission was a factor in frustrating and slowing them down! Evidently they didn't know how to drive manual, and their lack of manual driving skill might have helped save your car ��

I'm still surprised they still went ahead and stole it, despite not knowing how to drive manual. This is why I keep a steering wheel club on my manual 230i (and keep my key in an old metal chocolates box). Apparently it's easy to bypass the club, but at least it will deter the relay attacks.

Anyway, let us know how the stage 1 upgrades go!

[owenscj21]

I finally got the car back Friday. It sure feels nice having a new clutch and some additional fun stuff.

Intake, intercooler and downpipe installed are CTS Turbo. Charge pipe is VSRF. Stage 2 custom FTS tune with non aggressive burbles. Sure sounds nice. Now, I've got a break in period of 750-1000kms before I can really open it up.

[JMcLellan]

Originally Posted by owenscj21

I finally got the car back Friday. It sure feels nice having a new clutch and some additional fun stuff.

Intake, intercooler and downpipe installed are CTS Turbo. Charge pipe is VSRF. Stage 2 custom FTS tune with non aggressive burbles. Sure sounds nice. Now, I've got a break in period of 750-1000kms before I can really open it up.

Nice! This sounds like a pretty cool outcome considering how it started.