Waiting, waiting, waiting on BMW CODE WAIT - how long?

My '98 BMW 3-series had its battery die while it was in storage. I decided this was an opportunity to learn how to change its battery. Everything worked fine, except I got the "CODE _____" screen on my radio. I entered the wrong code more than once, and now I'm locked out on "CODE WAIT." The dealer said a few hours of driving should be enough, but 4 hours of commuting later, I'm still music-less.

I tried to out-smart it by disconnecting the battery for twelve hours overnight, but there must have been enough capacitance in the car.

A friend suggested leaving the ignition on for an hour. Does anyone know if that's enough time? I'd prefer not to run this new battery dead. Do I need to go to the dealer and admit defeat?

Waiting, waiting, waiting on BMW CODE WAIT - how long?stinger

(forum post)

You have to leave the car in the 'ON' position where the accessories are on with the radio on displaying CODE WAIT for 90minutes. It will then reset to CODE ----- where you can enter the code.

If the code he gave you doesn't work, get them to look it up again. There are two makers of the radios in these cars, alpine and blaupunkt. The codes for each are different. Chances are they gave you the code for the wrong make.

I went through this when I first bought my car.

(another post):

I missed your posts, because I had to get on the road Friday afternoon. Reading them now, you are perfectly correct. The code that I got (BTW, I'm the 3rd owner and the manuals got lost along the way) was incorrect. I ended up driving 6 hours without any tunes Saturday morning I called another BMW dealership and was helped immensely by the tech, over the phone. I explained what had happened, and that I had a code for an Alpine radio that didn't work. He said he'd get me any other codes that might work with the SN from the radio. He said that the only other brand available on my car would be a Blaupunt, and gave me the code for that. Once entered, wait about 5 nervous seconds and VOILA!!! Sweet music was filling the car. I had no idea there were 2 different brands of radio, and what really strikes me as strange, is that they share serial numbers. One would think that the serial number would be brand specific.

Waiting, waiting, waiting on BMW CODE WAIT - how long?virus scanner

Sounds like it....