Found a bmw key.

kaiowas

kaiowas

kaiowas

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I've found the key for a bmw whilst out walking the dog this morning, I'm planning to head out a little later once the rain has eased off to put up a poster in the area it was found but I was wondering whether anyone here knows whether it's worth dropping in to the local dealer.

Obviously I know that dealers have access to information that allows them to cut a new key for a given car but I was wondering if anyone here knows whether they have the ability to identify a car from it's key (and therefore contact the owner). If there's nothing they will be able to do and they'll just sling it in a drawer and forget about it then I won't bother with them.
 
Police tbh. That way you don't end up giving someone's key to a scrote and if they don't claim it you get to keep the car if you can find it*




*may not be true
 
Whilst handing it in to the police is the 'correct' thing to do I'm always a bit pessimistic about the chances of something actually finding its way back to its owner when handed in to such a large organisation that deals with high volumes of lost and found hence why I was asking whether a more proactive approach to finding the owner was possible.
 
At the end of the day though, it'll be really hard to tell the owner from a key, even for a garage.

Where would be the first place you'd go if you'd lost you're key? I'd go to police.

Obviously im not forcing you, its just the most logical idea in my mind..
 
BMW will be able to identify the car from the key. The service data is held on them.

Or should I say some data is held on them - the comprehensive service stuff is on BMW's computers.
 
Last edited:
Doomedspeed said:
At the end of the day though, it'll be really hard to tell the owner from a key, even for a garage.
..
Click to expand...

As soon as you insert a BMW key into a service key reader at a BMW dealer it details the history of the car. If the car is still being taken in for BMW servicing then the current owner will be easily contactable.
 
Don't take it to Police, no effort at all will be made to have the key returned. Unless the owner phones them it will sit and rot. Give it to BMW and get the owners details from there.
 
lol! The BMW garage will NOT give you the owners details:

1. Data Protection.

2. You may be going to nick the car.

They may take it off you and sort it from there (call owner, mail to owner etc) or just drop it into the police.
 
ivrytwr3 said:
lol! The BMW garage will NOT give you the owners details:

1. Data Protection.

2. You may be going to nick the car.

They may take it off you and sort it from there (call owner, mail to owner etc) or just drop it into the police.
Click to expand...

Well of course they won't - that's plainly obvious isn't it?

I'd expect them to contact the owner and get the key returned.
 
ivrytwr3 said:
lol! The BMW garage will NOT give you the owners details:

1. Data Protection.

2. You may be going to nick the car.

They may take it off you and sort it from there (call owner, mail to owner etc) or just drop it into the police.
Click to expand...

Of course they wont, but they should (if they are decent and have the details) take the key off you and give the owner a courtesy call if the owner is a customer of theirs...
 
which is what i said at the end of my post: "they may take it off you and sort it from there".

wtf is up with people this morning? Speed reading or hungover?
 
Walk around the area pressing the unlock button till you find the car, then go and knock on the frontdoor and hand over the key?

Depends if you have a load of spare time on your hands or not :p
 
kaiowas said:
I've found the key for a bmw whilst out walking the dog this morning, I'm planning to head out a little later once the rain has eased off to put up a poster in the area it was found but I was wondering whether anyone here knows whether it's worth dropping in to the local dealer.

Obviously I know that dealers have access to information that allows them to cut a new key for a given car but I was wondering if anyone here knows whether they have the ability to identify a car from it's key (and therefore contact the owner). If there's nothing they will be able to do and they'll just sling it in a drawer and forget about it then I won't bother with them.
Click to expand...

It depends on the type of key, but my key has lots of data on it relating to service history and my car, so if it's one of them a BMW could probably arrange for it to be returned to the owner.
 
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