Hey Guys,

I haven't seen this mentioned by anyone so here goes... I got a call today from someone at BMWNA saying that I haven't yet responded to renew my BMW Assist service. I took delivery of my car on Feb 21st 2004 so a year passed this past Feb. The guy on the phone said they left the service active until today when he asked me if I'd like to renew or cancel it. I have no way of verifying if it was indeed active. Infact I've never even once tested it, pressed that button at all.

I'm thinking now that the service is disabled (i think), the SOS button should still dial 911. Afterall the car has a built in cell phone and as with all cell phones, even ones with disabled service, you can always dial 911. He didnt have an answer for this. Any ideas?

Frankly though it doesn't matter too much for me. I always have my own cell phone on hand but .. well.. I'm curious!

 

I'm a bit curious about this myself. I never returned the calls I got from the sales people when they left me messages a while back trying to get me to renew BMW Assist.

I seem to remember reading somewhere about how a tech needs to program a specific 800 number into the TCU so the car will dial the BMW Assist center.

If we don't renew Assist, wouldn't the car still dial the programmed number? I doubt that there is anything remotely modifying any settings on our cars so although it makes sense that the car should at least call 911 if you press the button (or there is a crash), I wonder if it will call the Assist center anyway?

Then again, maybe the numbers that are programmed are for other things like the service requests, etc.

I'll look around to see if I can find where I read this stuff...

 

I got those calls and letters too. I decided to renew one time. I like the idea that in an accident, someone will know about it quickly. While calling BMW Assist to renew, the electronic messages on the phone said to press a key for theft recovery option. I asked about this and found it was available as an option on 05 not 04. What is the deal on this? They claim I cannot retrofit this option. Is it a GPS or what?? If you can put a TV in a US car, then you can retrofit other things...for a price.

 

I asked Munich about this, but of course things can be different here in Germany.
In Germany your SOS button will connect you to the German "911" if you don't renew your Assist service.