NHTSA Complaint #11510237 — 2015 BMW X5

Rod bearing failure causing engine to be damaged. The car has 79k miles, fully maintained at a BMW dealership. My wife and toddler were driving on the highway when the car shut off with no warning. We towed the car to the same BMW dealer where we’ve had the car serviced since 34,673 miles.. The dealer documented metal flakes in the oil filter. The dealer confirmed a rod bearing spun causing a catastrophic failure to the engine requiring replacement. Initial quote exceeding price of car at $74k. BMW Corporate contacted me and offered a discount on a new engjne. I declined the offer because the repair work was $32,843. This rod bearing issue is a known problem among 2015-2018 BMW X5M owners. This problem in fact existed on a previous generation engine which is referred to as the S65 motor. BMW has released a bulletin to this group of owners guaranteeing replacement based on the amount of miles on a customers engine. In some cases, a free engine was provided by BMW at no cost to the customer. The car only had 79k miles and without BMW NA involved the dealer wanted $74,332 to replace and repair vehicle. The BMW supervisor on this case is Lindsay and she can be reached at (800) 831-1117 ext. 115. She disregarded this was a safety matter and thought other owners shouldn’t be compensated or warned about this complete loss of power while driving this particular model (2015-2018 BMW X5M). This is an unacceptable outcome for a car with a MSRP is over $100,000. I’ve talked to half a dozen other 2015-2018 BMW X5M owners who also had total engine failure due to this same rod bearing issue. All of the cases the engine exceeded the cost or current market value of car.