Tag Archives: safety

Car Care

How to Keep Your BMW From Getting Stolen

No one wants to think about the possibility of their car getting stolen, but if you drive a luxury model like a BMW, you may find yourself the target of car thieves. What can you do to keep your BMW from getting stolen?

Don’t Make It Easy

While marketed as safer, more convenient and more secure, cars with keyless entry are disgustingly easy to break into. One series of tests looked at 237 models equipped with keyless entry. Of those vehicles, they were able to break into 230 of them using a relay device that augments the key fob’s signal, even when it’s not nearby. 

While BMW has taken steps to prevent this from working on their new models, don’t make it easy for potential thieves. Don’t leave your key fob in the car, and consider tossing it in the freezer or in a Faraday bag to make it impossible for thieves to use a relay device to steal your vehicle.

Lock Everything

This step might seem like common sense, but the statistics tend to indicate otherwise. According to one report, 50% of cars are unlocked when stolen, and 1 out of 8 have the keys in them.

Lock your car every single time you walk away, even if it’s only for a few minutes. Thieves aren’t looking to pick a lock or break a window if they can avoid it. They’re looking for an easy score, and what’s easier than someone who’s left their car unlocked with the keys in the ignition? 

Park It Indoors

The best thing you can do to protect your BMW from being stolen is to park it in a closed garage. LIke we said, car thieves are looking for an easy score. In most cases, they don’t want to add a breaking and entering charge to their rap sheet.

If your garage door isn’t working, getting stuck or making weird grinding noises when it opens, consider calling a professional to repair and maintain it. The garage door is the largest entryway into your home, and it’s essential to make sure it’s working correctly. 

Don’t Make It A Target

You wouldn’t walk into a wolf’s den with a steak around your neck, would you? Then why would you leave tempting morsels in your car while you’re not in it? Take all of your valuables out of your vehicle, including your wallet, phone, laptop and anything else that might be a tempting target. If you have to leave something nice in it, make sure you have a dash cam.

It takes almost no time for a thief to bust your window and make off with whatever you’ve left in the car, even if you have an alarm or anti-theft system. Don’t make your BMW a target by leaving valuables in plain sight.

Opt for a Manual Transmission

This idea sounds silly, but it’s more effective than you might think. In 2019, a group of carjackers attempted to steal a 1995 Honda Civic from a gas station. It should have been an easy snatch and grab — the car was unlocked, the engine running and the keys in the ignition. There was just one problem. 

None of the carjackers knew how to drive a stickshift. Therefore, when possible, opt for a manual transmission. It’s not foolproof but, with fewer people knowing how to drive a stickshift every year, it can reduce the chance that your BMW will disappear.

Be Prepared for Anything

While we can’t always prevent our BMWs from being stolen, we can take every possible step to reduce the possibility. Be prepared for anything, and you’ll never be surprised.

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Would You Drive the Blackest Car in the World?

Every year, people anticipate new car models that are about to be available to buy. It’s exciting to upgrade your car and check out all the new features the car industry has to offer, but one car, in particular, is taking over 2019.

The annual Frankfurt Auto Show is attended by nearly a million visitors every year. People know that it’s one of the best places to be the first to see the newest auto features, which is why so many people are already talking about the BMW X6 Vantablack model that will be there.

The biggest appeal of this model is the new shade of black that it’s made with. Read on to learn more about this new car color and why it’s amazed the car community.

It Plays With Your Mind

The color of a car is so important to the look and design of a new model. It changes how the car is perceived and how many people are likely to buy it. It’s rare for such a strikingly different color to be introduced in a car model, especially when the standard black paint hasn’t had many changes over recent decades.

BMW decided to change that when the company created the Vantablack VBx2 paint finish. They took the color black to a new level, changing how the human eye perceives the car just by altering the color.

Vantablack, created by BMW and Surrey NanoSystems, specifically coats the X6 and smoothes out any visual defining features. The car then appears as two dimensional, which is what stands out the most about this new paint. It’s been described as a rolling black hole, creating more of a buzz about the new model.

It Increases Driver Safety

Image via https://www.bmw.com/en/design/the-bmw-X6-vantablack-car.html

While the Vantablack that’s used on the X6 was created with the car in mind, the original color formula was actually designed for aerospace applications.

The color was named after the Vertically Aligned Nano Tube Array which makes it possible at a molecular level. Every carbon nanotube that creates the shade is about 5,000 times thinner than a human hair, allowing a billion nanotubes to fit into a single centimeter.

That means that any light that hits a Vantablack surface is completely absorbed. This is crucial for drivers in a few ways. First, it keeps approaching headlights from deflecting and blurring an oncoming driver’s vision. That decreases the chance for a collision late at night or during rainstorms.

The color also makes headlamps and taillights more pronounced, so X6 drivers can see further and more clearly in the dark. Black cars have been shown to be more prone to accidents, so anything that makes them more safe is a major advancement in driver safety.

It’ll Be Available Soon

Although the Vantablack X6 has become the highlight of the Frankfurt Auto Show, BMW has announced that the model on display will not be available to the general market.

Instead, it’s meant to stir interest in the color for future models. BMW plans on using it as an interior color, to reduce reflections on mirrors and displays during daylight driving. Will it one day be used as exterior paint on consumer cars? Only time will tell.

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Testing Autonomous Cars With Motion-Sickness Tech

While safety is the number one concern of those working on autonomous cars, there’s another hurdle that self-driving car engineers are working on — alleviating motion sickness. The German automotive company, Volkswagen, is taking necessary steps to address the potential issues of self-driving cars causing passengers to become nauseous.

Maybe you haven’t thought about motion sickness as an issue when riding in an autonomous vehicle, but if you give it some more thought, it makes sense.

Have you ever felt nauseous riding shotgun after looking down at your phone for an extended period of time? It’s the same principle here. When the body can’t anticipate change in speed and/or direction and take time to make necessary adaptations, the result can be a queasy feeling, or worse.

Drivers can more readily adapt their bodies to avoid motion sickness while driving, but if no one is driving, that’s one more person in the car who is susceptible to feeling nauseous.

Research Now, Enact Later

Though our favorite BMW engineers are working towards a fully autonomous vehicle, the mainstream reveal of fully autonomous vehicles is still at least a decade away. One of the biggest hurdles will be legislation after the technology fully rolls out. However, VW is thinking ahead and working to prevent nausea from putting a barrier between people and self-driving cars.

So how are they doing this? VW is performing tests by having passengers watch a video on a tablet while a car takes a 20-minute drive around a track. The passenger is connected to sensors that detect changes in heart rate, skin temperature and changes in skin tone.

These test subjects say they didn’t think they were particularly sensitive to motion sickness in the past, but they admitted to feeling the effects of it after only a few minutes of watching the video on the tablet while the car moved.

Researchers are exploring the potential of using adjustable seats that can react to driving changes. Another thought would be to install an LED light strip on the door panel that illuminates in green and red, which would provide a visual cue for the passenger to expect braking or acceleration.

Forward Thinking

While these early tests and studies are helpful, they will only pave the way for more thorough, in-depth experiments. For example, Jaguar has already begun some research into autonomous motion-sickness tech, too. Perhaps we’ll see Bimmers with this technology in the near future!

Even with the mainstream future of self-driving cars a decade away, we might eventually thank VW for developing anti-sickness tech for our favorite German cars.