Consumer Complaint Detail

BMW / E36 / 2003

Recalls
0 Injured
Investigations
0 Death
Complaints
No Fire
Components - Details
NHTSA Complaint Number: 006088873 Incident Date: Nov, 10 2006
Consumer's City: ORANGEBURG Consumer's State: SC
Vehicle Transmission Type: AUTO Manufacturers Name: BMW of North America, LLC
Model Name: E36 Model Year: 2003
Vehicle Involved in a Crash: No Component's Description: Power train:automatic transmission
Vehicle Involved in a Fire: No Persons Injured: 0
Vehicle's VIN#: 5UXFA53523L Date added to File: May, 23 2021
Date Complaint Received: Dec, 15 2006 Complaint Type: IVOQ
Incident Reported To Police: No Purchase Date: Jul, 02 2006
Was Original Owner: No Anti-lock Brakes: Yes
Number of Cylinders: 6 Date of Manufacturer: -
Was Vehicle Towed: - Description of the Complaints: Please refer to fr doc 04-10644. my problem concerns this exact issue with my 2003 bmw x5, ie, delayed park to drive engagement on cold start. on 11-11-06 i backed out of my drive (i live on a corner lot) and immediately am at a stop sign. i pulled out, but the transmission would not fully engage in drive and as a result i came within inches of being smashed by a truck that was coming down the road i was entering. in the document mentioned above it was determined that the defect was not a safety hazard. you were wrong. in this document bmw argued that they had a technical service bulletin sib 24 07 03 to correct this situation by installing a new transmission. unfortunately, in july '04 they revised this tsb to reprogram the egs module (increasing the pressure in the transmission so it takes longer to leak down) and not to put in new transmissions. i have had my x5 reprogrammed by bmw and it did no good. i had a bmw customer service advisor tell me that the reprogramming was a partial fix but did not solve the problem. he said it was a matter of money for bmw. my car is still under factory warranty. i bought it used. the bmw representative, jeff fitz, then had the nerve to tell me if i had bought the car new i would have a better chance of getting a new transmission. he said i should think about learning to live with the problem since his experience is that the new transmissions are not satisfactory either. i ask that you review your findings on the basis that bmw is not correcting the safety problem as indicated in fr doc 04-10644. *jb