2 beeps at start, then every 10 mins thereafter

[YYZ-M3]

As the title says. The beeps are exactly 10 minutes apart. BMW Scanner shows nothing obvious. I understand that E36 had a “memo” feature but I don’t believe E46 has this.

It is not the low temp warning.

2002 M3 Cabrio. No Navi. No warning lights on dash.

Appreciate any insights.

[bigjae46]

Sounds like you need to change the battery in your smoke alarm.

[YYZ-M3]

Found a GPS tracker from 2002 that was wired into the dash harness. Removed it and no more beeps.

[Estoril]

Found a GPS tracker from 2002 that was wired into the dash harness. Removed it and no more beeps.

Whoa. Who do you think put that there?

[bigjae46]

Whoa. Who do you think put that there?

The dealership. Saw it all the time as a service advisor. Just bought a used BMW, battery goes dead, GPS tracker wired into the battery which keeps the car awake and kills the battery.

E chassis - dealership could get away with installing those trackers since the cars were not as sophisticated with all of the connected services.

[Estoril]

The dealership. Saw it all the time as a service advisor. Just bought a used BMW, battery goes does, GPS tracker wired into the battery which keeps the car awake and kills the battery.

E chassis - dealership could get away with installing those trackers since the cars were not as sophisticated with all of the connected services.

Did they do that on leased BMWs?

[sapote]

Found a GPS tracker from 2002 that was wired into the dash harness. Removed it and no more beeps.

How did you trace to its location? Assuming it was hidden well.

[bigjae46]

Did they do that on leased BMWs?

Not sure. During my time, you'd only see it on used BMWs that were not sold by a BMW dealership.

If I had to guess...anything financed. The stealer will conceal it and make money from it by adding it to some standard add-on package. Usually they aren't very creative when trying to hide it. It is probably some tech that couldn't care less. Near the battery was the most common location.

[YYZ-M3]

How did you trace to its location? Assuming it was hidden well.

TBH I found it by accident. I removed the trim panel under the steering wheel so that I could remove the dead pedal panel. When I did that, I saw a white zip tie sticking down. I was pretty sure that wasn't original to the car, so I climbed under the dash and found the tracker wedged up in there.

The tracker is an Omega GPS 2000 with a production date of 2002. Can't find anything about it online, except by searching through the wayback machine/internet archive. Omega's current offerings ( https://www.omegagpstracking.com/ ) include a product that sends a ping every 10 minutes. That's exactly what I believe this unit was doing. I am further speculating that the battery in the tracking device died, and that is why I was getting the beeps from the cluster. For sure the beeps didn't start the day I took possession of the car - really nice of the previous owner to be up front about it :/

My guess is that it was installed by either the BMW dealership that originally sold the car in August 2002 or by the second owner (early 2006).

[elbert]

Did you try the login info on the label? 🤠

[YYZ-M3]

Of course I did! Website is dead.