Hi everyone. I just bought a MY05 R50 Cooper so I'm totally new to the parts and service scene (and this board). I'm interested in doing a number of things and I'm hoping for advice and recommendations for what to buy, where to go and where to for installation. My location is Sydney.

1. The car came only with one remote key. BMW quotes are in the $600 range for a remote and $300 for a remoteless key. A mobile autolocksmith has quoted $200 for the remoteless key, which my autoelectrician friend says is a fair price.

2. I have found the remote keys on ebay but they don't say anything about the immobilzer. Any experiences with these?

3. Retro fit fog lights and driving lights. Any recommendations for products and installation? I would prefer installation by someone who really knows the car and systems. I've done plenty of lights and radio self installs in the past, but that was cars from the last century.

Thanks!

A friend of mine has just replaced his key with an ebay one. He had an electrical firend swap the parts over to the new key and works fine. The immobiliser is a little black square thing that needs to be swapped over with the rest of the internals Im told.

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1965 Riley Elf
1974 Ex Army Moke
1997 Rover Cooper
2002 JCW Cooper
2003 JCW Cooper S

Thanks for the input. I am after a completely new duplicate key, rather than a swap from an existing to a new housing.

The ebay ones are only the housing, so you'll have to fork out for the $200 key and hope you don't loose the main one.
There are kits to fit spotlights that give you a new centre switch panel, but they aren't cheap.
You could wire them up yourself like any other car but the light trigger signals have to come from the headlight end of the circiot, as the stalks are CAN-bus and you can't wire directly to them.

Yes, i think the non-remote key is the most sensible option for price.

I have found the Wipac driving lights on ebay at a good price from the UK. While driving lights have a definite cool factor, I think I'll put the expense of those off and upgrade the high beams first and see how they go. It's mostly a city car for me anyway. I'm still interested in retro-fitting fog lights because they would be much more useful and practical, but it seems to be a costlier and more complicated exercise than the driving lights.