To cut a long story short... I had my locks changed after a set of keys got stolen. The outside locks were changed about a month ago but the reprogramming was left as I needed the car back.

BMW have had the car since yesterday morning, and I have just been told that the reprogramming will take another 9 hours to complete ie unlikely to get it back before the holiday weekend...

Anyone know whether this is normal, and if so why it takes so long in the 21st century ?

Thanks
Pits

 

Don't you know? All software is converted into hardware by chiseling it into the steel of the car. As it is a highly advanced machine with lots of exotic materials, this is done by highly advanced laser technology. Discussions about if it were to be blue or red laser went on in other industries but the highly advanced engineers at BMW started anyway. So now it takes forever to first erase all code from every part that can be written upon and then te rewrite everything onto it. Rumor has it that its also windows based so they really need to go all the way of erasing everything and then rewriting the good parts as well. Thus introducing new errors.


or:

It took years and years to develop a car like this, software therefore cannot be good unless slowly added to this heritage of technological development. It would break like a hot plate splashed with ice water!

and:

This is also why we have rather outdated software in the navigation systems and little to no useful variables to edit ourselves. Allowing access to the software would expose a rather simple, outdated and messy code that is not worth the money. They have been able to keep this up where it comes to technology and service maintenance (BMW dealership oil change vs equally skilled mechanics at a no-brand shop saves a LOT of money) using the same parts and fluids. As those mechanics are relatively specific to a car. But software is everywhere and we - consumers - know too much about it already.

Of course it can be done in 2 minutes. Of course a car should have a standard plug like firewire or gigabit ethernet or fiber connection. In fact, of course it can be done even remotely without coming to the shop at all. Of course we can get software produced that allows you to switch profiles via i-drive (economode, traffic jam mode, performance mode, and so on). I'm sure that in testing situations (closed environment) they can test various versions of software by updating in a blink of the eye.

partly the general publics knowledge/experience is also to blame for it not being here yet: lots of systems have poor software. Buggy, incomplete and so on that keeps us from trusting machines run by software. In reality we do that anyway but only if we don't really know about it (airplanes, traffic management, banking and so on). I wouldn't mind them to update my car remotely but would want their guarantee for the security of the access and use of privacy related data (i.e.: gps and speed history that can be used to fine you after a quick trip). and that is what is way to far over their heads at the moment.

They're hardware people, not software people and definitely not a combination of both that is dearly needed in modern cars.