2009 BMW M3: Truly Keyless Entry

It should be noted that the ridges simply indicate the zone to touch when you want to LOCK the doors. To unlock, you just pull the door handle normally.

I, for one, find that to be a somewhat poor idea. Because I have a car that has the old-school click-to-unlock thingy to open the car door and sometimes it doesn't work. Say, if the battery is not properly functioning or something. So it includes a kind of half-key in the fob that lets you open the car door should there be a problem with the fob. What do you do if there's no key option at all? You're screwed.

The new Prius has this as well.

The cadillac STS has had this for a while now.

@funkymunky: There's always a physical key for backup. i dont think we'll ever 100% replace the key with anything that still depends on battery. The handle on that picture is only for the passenger side. The driver side has the keyhole.

@bimmerjay: a bit of correction, you don't have to pull the handle to unlock, just touch the inside of the handle briefly.

Is there a button for the trunk too?

It is optional because a number of buyers are still weary of keyless entry. If it was standard you could potentially drive them to other offerings.

ckk2: It is optional because a number of buyers are still *weary* of keyless entry. If it was standard you could potentially drive them to other offerings.

I think you meant "wary" as "weary" means tired.

I have the button on the Z but it is the same color as the door handle.

I've wondered what happens when the fob doesn't work - how does one start the car? IL - test it out for us!

Ah, the one thing on the M3 that I hate! I love the idea of comfort access but the execution is poor. Is it blasphemy to say that GM does it better? With GM cars, the car unlocks as you near it and locks when you walk away (if you set it that way). BMW makes you play touchy feely with the door handle until it doesn't work and you finally reach in your pocket and unlock or lock the doors with the fob. This happens probably 50% of the time to me. Maybe I just emit too much static electricity or something. I do have ceramic window tint but it didn't work any better or worse before/after the tint.

That said, the pushbutton start/stop always works with no issues with the fob in my pocket.

Smrtypants44, There is a button for the trunk that detects if you are near and allows you to open the trunk if you have the fob in your pocket. You can also release the trunk from inside the car. Interestingly, at some point in the '08 model year, they did away with the physical key slot in the trunk. I don't know if they made a pass through or folding seats standard but you'd be out of luck if you needed trunk access and your battery was dead if you don't have folding seats or a pass through.

^^mmmm3, I liked how GM executed this on the Corvette, where the button resides inside the handle scoops. This was on the Grand Sport I saw at the Seattle Auto Show. Not sure if the key fob can just be in your pocket, however.

My Venza has the same setup. Grab the handle to unlock, touch the ribs to lock. Never had a problem with it.

I think is big crap that BMW doesnt offer this standard, but only this germans can pull that off. But time will come dear friends, time will come....just like they didnt even offer a CD player standard.

Scandalous that BMW charges for this. It'd actually be easier to put it on all of their cars and up the price by $25.

That said, I had it and loved it. Like it much more than the type you must touch the rubber button. Would prefer if the car locked when I walked away but it's better than ever using a key. Had it for a week on a loaner recently - sigh, remembered it was grand on my 06 330i. My 07 335i doesn't have it. Grumble.

jederino, my GM reference was a Corvette which opened the door when you pulled the door handle. I guess it might have been unlocking as you pulled the handle so it might not have unlocked as I walked up. It definitely did lock automatically when I had it set that way as I walked away from it.

One way or another, the GM system never failed to lock or unlock where the BMW one frequently won't do one or the other without incident.

I haven't driven any other brands' keyless products so I'm not familiar with the other systems.

mmmmmmmmmm3 , it's your tint. My CA performance dropped by 50% when my windows were tinted.
I have Huper Optik ceramic. 08 M3 sedan.

With the GM system (walk away and it locks, come back and it unlocks), there's no way to check if the doors are locked unless you have stretch-armstrong arms to keep the key far away.

achenator, I've got F1 Pinnacle ceramic and I didn't notice any difference before and after the tint.

"achenator, I've got F1 Pinnacle ceramic and I didn't notice any difference before and after the tint."

It's the tint. Ceramic tint is well-known to mess with Comfort Access.

For the record, I've had at least 4 BMWs with CA (and used it on numerous others) and it's always worked very consistently, with maybe less than 1% of the time where it doesn't detect the key right away and I have to wait a half-second or so. If you find it doesn't work well 50% of the time and you insist it was like that before the tint then yours has a technical problem. But I still think it's the tint - tons of people have issues with ceramic.