ak90 review from an actual US bmw owner e46 ews 3

I think I'll take that last comment back. After going through and taking pictures for a DIY (not to mention I have a small issue I'm trying to fix. The keys I wrote to my ews mcu allows me to drive the car fine but for some reason, I get an ews error, dtc 7 or 17, i forgot which. It allows me to lock unlock car but I can't get my clown nose to blink, or car to chirp or set my alarm off. I tried setting my digital multi meter to siren, led and i get power but both ground wires aren't grounding. I'm assuming that the system is set for switched ground when armed), i noticed a mistake I had done during the key coding process (If I'm on to something let's call it blind luck). The ak90 allows you to change the vin and odometer on the ews. I had set it to 0. Now of course my cluster didn't reflect that but the other day I was messing around on pa soft and there's an option for the dme to "set odometer". When I did that, the dme changed to 0. Weird. When I look at my zke module, that too shows as 0 (and oddly the vin is blank). I wonder if I could take a used ews, high mileage or not, set the vin and odometer, and then see if my car would take it. Now I have a better idea. If anybody in the Bay Area has an ews key limit or toast ews that's willing to allow me to experiment, I'll do it for free (more than likely I'd have to drive to you). Get yourself a used ews and I'll see if it'll work. As far as getting a key to work, it may be safer if we had a blank transponder seeing as the ews isn't originally from your car we may avoid unexpected problems. (I'll get back to you on that needing blank transponder thing. If i fix my issue and can successfully change the number of the key that originally came with my car set for #4 at the moment, then the myth and lies bmw has been telling every can be myth busted. Supposedly you can't clone another key and especially clone a key using a key from a different ews, in this case, your old fried ews. All I can say is that I used my old key and changed its key position from 4 to 1 and it started the car right up. What I'm not sure of is if it had anything to do with not allowing me to set my alarm because originally, it did work, we'll, my blank new transponder key did. Now it doesn't either, maybe that's because I changed its position too. Lol. I'll try and change it back to its original key number. I tried changing my old key back to its old position but that didn't solve my issue).

Nevermind. I think I figured it out. I noticed with parents soft when you run identification in the beginning, a pop up appears with info about your car. At the bottom it lists your vehicle order options. I swear dwa should be an option on there but it's not! So I'm going to code it using ncsexpert and see what I come up with.

Ok, i guess I didn't figure it out. It's late so ill try one other thing tomorrow. It never occurred to me to try and just hook the siren or the clown nose led straight to a known working power source and ground to see if it's the hardware itself that's fried. I mean, I did notice that when I disabled the dwa alarm, my lights did not flash during lock unlock. When u had it activated, it did. That at least tells me the dealer is active. Let's see if the simplest thing I should've tried first was right in front of me the whole time. It's just that stupid dme giving me misleading trouble faults. I mean, why couldn't it just say that, instead of short to ground or open circuit. That tells me only What might be wrong, not what is.

Ok. I figured it out. My stupid a$$ had been messing with the zke GM5 central body Electronics recently, the one behind fuse box I glove compartment and i guess I didn't plug in the 26 pin harness into its connector properly. I only found this out (although I did intend on looking here as the next troubleshooting attempt) while I was doing an alarm install. Everything works again.

Hello every body .
Im in need of some help please, it all started when my original key stopped locking and unlocking the car it only starts it , because im guessing the battery is dead on it so I bought a new virgin uncut original key from overstock.com thru ebay i took it and got it cut , then took the key to my mechanic so he can try programming it which he did out of a book, now it locks and unlocks the car but when you put it in the ignition it starts the car for a minute then shuts off by itself, is there a way i could fix my new key or did we miss a step ?

by the way my car is 2003 bmw 330i

Do you still have your original key? Use that to start your car or I'm assuming that's what you're already doing. Unless you plan un soldering the transponder and soldering it on your new electronics, or transfer the new battery over (which would be easier) your buddy will not be able to help you unless he has software. Initializing the remote, which is what he did only allows it to provide remote functions. Until you find someone like me to code the transponder, you'll be carrying 2 keys around, one for each function

Do you have an idea how i can remove the battery or the chip. And if not do you know of anybody that dies the programing like you in or around Virginia

Im sure a locksmith does. You just have to find the right one but don't get happy yet. I only received 1 quote told to me by someone who had it done. Programming itself will be over $100. As far as taking the battery or chip out, I'd go for the battery. Looks easier. Do you even have a soldering iron? If not, I read somewhere this guy removed it by cutting something connected to the battery and didn't even solder it to the other key. He said when you close up the key, that itself should keep the battery in place

to Mr NUMBAONENEWB your friends at remote overstock.com are theifs they sell fake keys to the public claiming its genuine , after i took my key to a couple of lock smiths and a dealer ship they all said the same thing the key is afake it shows up on their machine as invalid key #86 , espically since the keysare supposed to run from 1 to 10 . and here is the proof

Hmm... That's odd. Well they aren't my friends. I only posted their link because inside my package, there was a card saying I'd get reimbursed 25% of what I paid if i wrote a review saying it worked. Well it did so that's why I did it. As for it being a fake and not genuine, a fake? Mine worked . not genuine? Yeah I could agree with that. The bmw lock button wasn't indented in like my oem key. It stuck up a little, causing me to always accidentally locking my car all the time. You bought it through ebay right? They also have a refund policy. Get your money back

Wait, so you took it to bmw and they actually took the time of day to even contemplate on programming the key you didn't buy from them? I heard dealerships don't do it at all.

I am in the process of contacting them now and take a look at this

my mechanics cousin works there and he showed me everything n how the key was showing up as invalid

I'll take their link off this thread now. Hey I didn't mean for you to get jipped. I was just doing an experiment and since it's my first online key, I wanted a seller with a refund policy, exactly for this reason. However, genuine or not, it worked, which was the point of my experiment

i dont understand how it did , since as you can see it doesnt even have the same number of chips in it not even the battery is the same , its supposed to be a rechargeable battery yet they have some crappy knock off battery

Hey, I have a question. Why did you take it apart for? If it wasn't programmable, you should have just contacted them.

And if not was showing up as an invalid fake key, I would've bombarded them with emails demanding my money back. Perhaps your mechanics cousin, was using a software designed by bmw and only does oem keys. Wait a second, where does this person work? At bmw?

Also I just saw where you said it locks and unlocks right? I mean that has to mean that the car at least recognized it as somewhat of a valid key right? I'm not disputing your claim. Like i said, the key didn't look genuine either but it worked.

i was gonna take the batter and place it in my original then put it back in the new casing since its not as worn out as mine, but to my surrise they look nothing alike from the inside. and i have been emailing them i even told them i have proof of it been a fake im just waiting on a reply.

Yeah. Sorry to hear that. I mean i could tell right away it wasn't oem just by the way it felt in my hand. Oem keys feel natural and just right. The one I got from them felt cheap but again, I was buying the lowest costing key I could find with a refund policy. I just ended up being them. Plus if a battery was all you're looking for, they sell the rechargeable batteries that is equivalent to oem or online. If you just wanted a new case and battery, i can guarantee you, you could have bought those 2 separately for a lot cheaper like, maybe around $20. I wouldn't have bought a whole new key for all that