I finally bought my first BMW! Since I was a little girl I have been in love with them (yes I am a car girl!) and I finally pulled the trigger after years of minivans and mom-mobiles!
I cannot tell you how much I love this car.
Except I live in upstate New York, where it’s freezing for a minimum of 7 months a year.
Yes it has heated seats and a heated steering wheel, but no remote start. (Insert eye roll here.)
X2’s aren’t terribly common in my area and this one was made for me- save for this and no blind spot warning light on my side mirrors. I bought it used (LOW mileage- about 35k miles. I’m not insane.) Unfortunately this particular car was traded into a Honda dealership. (Which is super unfortunate for the sucker who traded a BMW in for a Honda, but I digress…) Since it wasn’t a BMW dealership our salesperson didn’t know all the details for the features, so I’ve been little by little learning and finding all these fun features. But nothing on a remote starter.
Everything is essentially in place due to the push button start. It’s all software so this is making me insane. So, please, my fellow Bimmer owners and enthusiasts, please help a girl out. Are there apps available? I know they get a bit pissy about aftermarket and mods for warranties so I don’t want to screw myself over…
Thanks, in advance, for your help!
“Which is super unfortunate for the sucker who traded a BMW in for a Honda”
There is no guarantee that happened, the dealer could have bought the car at auction or any number of things besides a direct trade in.
A quick test that you can do is to triple-press the key fob lock button (BMW logo). If it was set up by the previous owner, it’ll remote start. If not, head to Setting on iDrive and I believe the setting are located in Climate Control. You’d be looking for “pre-ventilation”, and there should be an option to enable remote starts from the key fob (I’m not with my vehicles at the moment otherwise I would be able to give a more detailed explanation on that).
Another option to check is to open the MyBMW app and the homepage and look for the logos I’ve circled in the attached photo. Those will tell you if you have remote start set up. If not, the app is great for providing info on set up for this and various other vehicle functions. Hopefully this helps, and congrats on your Bimmer!
