This data is from the NHTSA — the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints are spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem.
So how do you find out what problems are occurring? For this NHTSA complaint data, the only way is to read through the comments below. Any duplicates or errors? It's not us.
2013 BMW 328I X-drive, driving @ 40 mph the drivetrain malfunction light came on, car went into reduced power mode (no higher than 20 mph) making a very dangerous situation in traffic. Luckily I could pull over to a safe area. I called BMW roadside assistance. When tow truck arrived, no warning light! dealer could not replicate error, but now have a air bag warning coming on intermittently... back to dealer I guess. This is a common, potentially dangerous and frustrating issue for 328 owners.
Transmission problem resulting in violent shuddering of the vehicle body and abrupt engine stops resulting in dangerous driving conditions. Fluctuations in the tachometer when the car attempted to stop and the car would automatically change gears to neutral or park.
As I was approaching the on ramp for the highway, I sped up in order to merge into oncoming traffic. I depressed the gas pedal completely to the floor but the car picked up extremely slowly as if it did not have any power. I also noticed at the same time that my engine temperature seemed to be unusually low for a vehicle that had been running for over an hour. There had also been an extremely loud fan noise that would come on every 2 minutes or so. As a result of the lack of power, I nearly caused a collision between myself and the vehicle behind me because the oncoming vehicle did not anticipate someone merging onto the highway at such a slow pace. I continued to drive without power for about 20 minutes as if the car was a naturally aspirated vehicle even though it was clearly turbo charged but the turbo never kicked in. When I got off of the highway and was able to pull over to restart my vehicle, the car started to run as normal.
While slowly coming to a stop, the brake pedal became hard yet the car would not stop and seemed to glide for 10-15 feet before finally stopping at which point the engine revved to 6000 RPM, but did not accelerate. The pedal became so hard that I could not press any harder, yet was still slowly moving. Turned the car off and restarted the car and drove to the dealer. The dealer could not find anything wrong. On 7/15/2013 the exact same thing happened again as I was pressing the brake pedal I could feel the car continuing to move forward and the brake pedal became very hard yet still did not stop the car. As soon as the car finally stopped the engine revved to 3500 RPM, at which time I shut it off. Car is back at the dealer and bmwna has been notified of both episodes.
Auto start/stop function has malfunctioned before where when I take my foot off the brake, the car doesn't start again. Normally I can just press the start button and put it in drive. This time, however, I went to start it again after it had an "auto start/stop malfunction", and it wouldn't turn back on. An error popped up saying "ignition malfunction -- do not turn engine off. Car will not start again." Currently waiting to hear back from the dealership after I had to flatbed it. Also the car wouldn't go into neutral so they had to drag it on the flatbed.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- Sumter, SC, USA