NHTSA Complaint #11631630 — 2020 BMW 330I

The drivers side front tie rod buckled while backing into a parking space at less than 5mph. This vehicle had pulled out of our home garage and driveway just 5 minutes prior to tie rod buckling. The car was fully operational with no steering issues. NO IMPACT had taken place in the time from garage cam video until vehicle was pulling into a parking space and steering was off for one tire. Vehicle could not steer correctly to be parked so we had it towed to Hafkemeyer Motors. Before the vehicle arrived they told us it sounded like a tie rod was broken, which is likely due to impact. NO IMPACT occurred. Upon inspection of the vehicle, two separate technicians agreed this vehicle has no signs of any impact. This tie rod appears to have buckled for no reason. They reported that 2018-2019 model years of this same vehicle had a tie rod defect which resulted in a recall and replacement. With no evidence of any impact, they recommended replacing the both front drivers and passenger side tie rods because they feared the same thing could happen to the other side. We have video of the vehicle leaving home 5 minutes before the buckle happened and the vehicle was operational with no steering issues at all. Mechanic took photos of the undercarriage of the vehicle to show buckled tie rod and lack of any evidence of impact to the vehicle. They also noted in their reporting system what was observed and replaced. We believe this recall may need to be expanded to include additional model years or vehicles with this same tie rod defect. This car has less than 50K miles and no crashes or impact. This tie rod should not have buckled like this. Show below are photos of both front tie rods as well as mechanic notes and receipt for work done. I cannot upload the video of the operational vehicle, but it can be viewed in my DropBox folder here: [XXX] INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)