It was Sunday afternoon when I installed the roof rack on my new BMW F30 320i.
We were about to go on a 2 week trip to France and were intending to leave next Friday.
During that night, my girlfriend and I were fast asleep, when at 03:45 the doorbell rang.
We looked at each other dazed.
I got out of bed and attempted to journey downstairs in my boxers when the doorbell rang again.
Before opening the door I went into the living room to gaze out of the window.
A police car with 2 policemen was standing in front of our house.
They said that a car burglary had taken place.
The follow-up question was whether or not the alarm system was linked to an emergency call center.
Mere vandalism?
After putting on some clothes, we went to the car to inspect the damage.
The front window on the passengers side was partially broken.
For some reason, none of the interior lighting buttons worked.
I only cared for it not being stolen.
I looked around the car and couldnt find anything missing or out of order.
Was this simply a case of vandalism?
The police advised me to report it first thing in the morning.
I was able to get an appointment for 10:30 the same day.
The severe error stated that there was an issue with the passengers side seatbelt.
The warning stated that the SOS button on the ceiling wasnt in contact with BMW anymore.
Unfortunately, this was not the case.
I decided to call the local BMW dealer.
They advised me to drop by in the afternoon so that they could take a look at it.
A nasty surprise
That afternoon, on my way home, I dropped by the BMW dealer.
After explaining the situation, one of the service employees followed me to my car.
He looked all around, trying to figure out what the burglars were trying to achieve.
After being puzzled for a while, another service employee joined the search.
He pulled it away.
After close inspection, I noticed that the wire loom was cut through.
My first thought at that time was, does the interior alarm actually still work?
We closed the doors and locked the car.
Not all too surprising, the alarm light underneath the interior mirror didnt blink as it normally would.
At that time, the service employee strongly advised me not to take my car home.
The first is a radar, used for movement detection inside the car.
The other one was an air pressure sensor, used for detecting sudden changes in air pressure.
This is the sensor that will, among other things, detect a broken window.
We looked at each other, less puzzled than before.
It was crystal clear that these burglars were not ignorant.
They knew exactly what they were doing.
That would give them more than enough time to bypass the ignition interlock and steal the car entirely.
He told me that a class 3 alarm system doesnt have a tracking option.
I told him about the cut wire and how it disabled the SOS button.
His thought was that it was actually the BMW call center which is hooked up to the SOS button.
His suspicion was that, as soon as the button loses connection with BMW, they get notified.
I decided to call the police to inquire about the phone call.
The BMW service employee also told me that he rang the national BMW damage repair center.
They confirmed that they also never seen a car theft attempt like this before.
What about the vacation?
Unfortunately, they werent able to help me within the 3 days that were left before our planned vacation.
