Consumer Complaint Detail

BMW / E36 / 2003

Recalls
0 Injured
Investigations
0 Death
Complaints
No Fire
Components - Details
NHTSA Complaint Number: 007126582 Incident Date: Oct, 08 2007
Consumer's City: MIRAMAR Consumer's State: FL
Vehicle Transmission Type: MAN Manufacturers Name: BMW of North America, LLC
Model Name: E36 Model Year: 2003
Vehicle Involved in a Crash: No Component's Description: Engine and engine cooling:exhaust system
Vehicle Involved in a Fire: No Persons Injured: 0
Vehicle's VIN#: WBSBL93473J Date added to File: May, 23 2021
Date Complaint Received: Nov, 12 2007 Complaint Type: IVOQ
Incident Reported To Police: No Purchase Date: Sep, 15 2005
Was Original Owner: No Anti-lock Brakes: Yes
Number of Cylinders: 6 Date of Manufacturer: -
Was Vehicle Towed: - Description of the Complaints: Double vanos system on several models of bmw from 1999 to 2006, have defective vanos systems. the e39 double vanos (variable valve timing unit) has a malfunction problem. this double vanos can be found on 6-cyl engines m52tu, m54, and m56, found in several model cars, e39, e46, etc, years 99-03. the malfunction symptoms are almost all subtle and mostly go unnoticed. they include lower gas mileage, lower performance, degraded emissions control, and possibly others. the m52tu engine (99-00) has one further malfunction symptom which is far from subtle. it occurs on cold weather cold engine starts and takes the form of repeated engine attempted stalls and possibly a complete engine stall. the engine rpms drop dramatically and then recover. this then repeats after a few seconds of steady idle. the problem can be more definitively diagnosed by disconnecting the vanos intake or exhaust solenoid electrical connector. *tr