I just bought a 2008 135i and wanted to activate BMW Assist. I understand the service is $400/year for the convenience plan. That's fine. I'm a bit irritated with the fact that they're also asking $200 to activate BMW Assist in my car, though. Is there any sort of discount or some means of rebate through the BMW CCA that will cover the activation cost? I'm just not willing to pay $200 for a light switch to be flicked and it would be a shame if that's what ultimately prevented me from giving BMW $400/year.
Me = Jealous of your ride. I now have One envy. I've never used my Assist, but it is nice to have it there just in case.
If the original owner let the BMW Assist contract lapse then the phone number assigned to the telematics unit in your car that is used for BMW Assist may have been re-assigned. In that case the dealer has to re-activate BMW Assist and have a new phone number re-assigned. They generally charge 1 hour of service to do this. This happened with my 2006 Z4 M Roadster which I bought last July. The original owner let BMW Assist lapse in 2010. My dealer wanted $175 to reactivate it in addition to the $199 annual BMW Assist fee, which is actually the Safety Plan. I did some searching on the Internet, found the BMW documents that describe the procedure, and did it myself in less than 10 minutes. Search on zpost.com for my posts on this process, user name is SD Z4MR. I'd look it up for you but I'm getting ready to leave on vacation tomorrow. The Convenience Plan is an additional $199 and is optional, but you must have the Safety Plan to add the Convenience Plan. Before you decide on whether to activate BMW Assist or add the optional Convenience Plan make sure that you will be able to take full advantage of it. Look at the info on bmwassist.com for a complete description of both the Safety Plan and the optional Convenience Plan. On my wife's car we have BMW Assist which was included for four years. We opted for the Convenience Plan because it has features that we use. On my car, some of the features won't work with my car because it doesn't have the capability. This includes the remote unlock and automatic collision notification. I only have it for the Enhanced Roadside Assistance because I don't have run flat tires and don't have a spare.
Hey, thanks a lot for all of that leg work! Unfortunately, I don't have the wrench button that you do. Looking through the documentation that you dug up, it seems mine has to be set by the BMW Diag Tools. I hope there's a way I can do it otherwise.