Car was parked in the driveway, drove it earlier that day for about an hour, parked it 3pm and 2 hours later neighbor came knocking saying car was smoking. Ran outside and car was on fire. Interior was smoked out. Keyless entry was dead. Broke the window to get the car open, turned the garden hose on to try and stop the car from burning. Called 911 fire dept arrived and had to pry the truck open because it was still sizzling. Fire dept cut the battery cables and said it looked like an electrical fire under the dash. Glove box and passenger side front seat was completely charred. After 22 days, a BMW engineer and allstate ins called it a total loss. BMW engineers report still has not been published. Total loss on a parked vehicle; clearly this vehicle was unsafe and a design fault. Manufacturers are suppose to engineer cars to withstand fires.

- Ontario, CA, USA

Go here for the entire story: www.bmwfire.com I purchased a brand new 2008 BMW 328I for $38,000 from sonnen BMW in san rafael, California. The car had a serious manufacturers defect that caused an electrical fire and resulted in my car being totaled. I had multiple issues with the front passengers side fog light falling out of its casing into the lower corner of the bumper which caused three separate fires. BMW has refused to replace my vehicle that had 11,500 miles and is covered under warranty. At the end of June 2008 I first realized this problem happened upon a closer inspection of the exterior of the car. I brought the car right away to sonnen BMW's service department, as I was worried about the safety of the vehicle. I showed them what happened, but they told me that they had no available appointments until two weeks out and that my car was safe to drive. Two weeks later I brought my vehicle to sonnen's service department, they "verified the defect" as stated in their service records. They replaced the complete front bumper and supposedly re secured the foglight. All of this was covered under BMW's warranty as it was a manufactures defect. I asked tom murtha (my service advisor) why this had happened, he told that because there was absolutely no impact damage, the only way this could have occurred was a mistake when building the vehicle at the factory. I thought all of my problems were solved until a foggy day in san francisco, California. On October 25th, 2008 at approximately 4:00 pm. While waiting at a stoplight I turned on my fog lights at the intersection of front & broadway (assuming that the foglight had been secured). It was foggy out and my passenger and I could not see the smoke that was coming from the passenger side fog light because of a small fire it caused. I was made aware of this when a pedestrian walked up to my car and alerted me that there was a fire. I pulled over right away and I dumped the contents of a large water bottle on the flame.

- San Rafael, CA, USA