The contact owns a 1998 BMW 740il. The contact stated that the transmission failed. The vehicle would not drive forward and would not shift into fourth gear when the accelerator pedal was depressed. The words "failsafe mode" illuminated on the instrument panel. There were no warnings prior to the failure. The dealer stated that a new transmission would be needed at the cost of $6,000. Both the manufacturer and the dealer stated that NHTSA campaign id number 99V005000 (power train:automatic transmission) did not apply to his VIN. The contact paid for the vehicle to be repaired on November 26, 2008. The current mileage was 91,695 and failure mileage was 91,690.

- Snyder, NY, USA

Transmission problems - 1998 740il. I bought a cpo BMW 740il with 35,000 miles. Now I have 65,600 miles on the car and I too am having issues with the transmission. While the car was under cpo warranty, I had taken the car to the dealership when I was getting a check trans message, which I have service records for. The dealership refused to acknowledge the error, saying that they could not read the code on the computer. Well now the transmission won\'t go in park or reverse and needs to be replaced and the car is out of cp warranty. Damage resulting = looks like I have to pay $7,000 for a transmission that should have been fixed while still under warranty, as the warranty on the car has expired. The car is not worth more than $12,000 now.

- Pennington, NJ, USA

When the vehicle is started a light comes on the dash warning about transmission fail safe program. When this light comes on vehicle cannot be driven. Vehicle had been to dealer four times for this problem.

- Bellmore, NY, USA