NHTSA Complaint #11429454 — 2017 BMW X5

On July 30, 2021, my 2017 BMW X5 35d, which had only about 49,000 miles on it and which had been serviced only six weeks before, died without warning. My son and I could have been killed. The car went into Park and had to be towed on a flatbed to the dealer. After 5 days of no word, the dealer falsely accused me of putting gasoline in my diesel vehicle. The dealer eventually determined that the high-pressure fuel pump had failed, which caused exactly the problem listed in BMW's July 29, 2021 recall notice to its dealers: it caused metal fragments to contaminate the entire fuel system. BMW initially advised me that it had no "recall remedy," but when it did, it would replace the fuel pump but would not repair the nearly $13,000 in damage to the fuel system that the fuel pump failure caused. BMW eventually relented and advised it will complete all repairs caused by the fuel pump failure. But it has declined to reimburse me for the "overage" charges I've incurred in towing the vehicle to the dealer and in connection with the rental vehicle they obtained for me. And of course, not a single apology for the harrowing experience that could have resulted in our deaths, nor for the considerable inconvenience caused by this defect that BMW has known about for years.