Noticed an unusual engine vibration. Went to my mechanic who inspected vehicle. Pointed out broken motor mount bolts. His comment I have seen several of these over the years. The bolts are made from aluminum -- they break. Said he this was an ongoing and well known issue with bmw from that year and 2009. Said bmw would not cover it. He also stated the car had no visible signs of damage, to undercarriage that would suggest any damage. He said it just happens, and a lot of people have complained to bmw, all to no avail. Instead of beamers... They should call this car a bummer. It is an very expensive problem, created by poor engineering and manufacturing. Aluminum bolts holding an engine.
2008 BMW 3 Series engine complaints
Page 2 of 2: complaints 11 to 18 of 18, newest first, as owners wrote them.
As an example, when attempting to accelerate the vehicle onto a moving traffic situation the car hesitates/lags/delays before the engine catches, then it takes off like a rabbit when you don't expect it. This vehicle behavior has caused near miss accidents more than once when I was driving. It's not a delay which decreases a transient surge. It increases the transient surge as the car does not respond to the throttle for a half second then bolts forward with an awkward lurch and a slam. It's much rougher than a normal takeoff would be. It's not at all smooth. Some have described it as being rear-ended. The has been happening since I purchased the car in november 2010 many bmw owners have reported the problem to bmw as I have. The answer I got as well as many others from bmw was, "it's normal".
I was driving on the highway at about 70 miles an hour when the engine just suddenly stopped. While the car was slowing down I have to pull over and restart the car. Then after driving for another 10 min the engine stopped again this time I didn't have time to pull over and stopped in the middle of a highway. I have to keep trying before it restarted. I stopped at a gas station and was afraid to drive it again. Finally without a choice after an hour I started the car back up and was able to drive back home.
When travelling on harlem river drive middle lane, my car all the sudden displayed an engine overheat light yellow that turned red within 3 seconds and started losing power (from 50-60 MPH to 1 MPH) within 5 seconds...the car had to be towed to the nearest dealership. This is an extremely dangerous situation, as I did not have enough warning time to pull to the shoulder. The dealership is stating that this is a water pump failure. I am aware that there are recalls on x5s but not on my car. My friend who owns the same car and year had the exact same problem resulting in the same cost of repair ($1600). My vehicle already has many recalls including seat belts, air bags, and high pressured fuel pumps. This should not happen to a car that has been maintained by bmw and just out of warranty (less than 60000 miles). Not even 4 years yet. I have owned many bmws and other cars and never had a water pump failure that caused a danger of this magnitude... I would appreciate if you would investigate the situation to prevent this from happening to other owners.
My 335i 2008 has had three recalls all related to the fuel system. With 24,000 miles it now has issues with starting.I recently have taken it back to my dealer,left it for four days, picked it up with "cannot duplicate customer complaint". In less than a week the start up has gone from three to five un,un,un,un,uns to crank. The car is about to go out of warranty and I believe that bmw knows there are serious problems and is refusing to repair until they are able to get repairs income. I guess I should have cancelled my special order when two weeks before delivery they called and said my car had arrived in us but would not be released due to "engine compression problems". All other issues I have asked to be repaired are not with dealer noting "cannot duplicate customer complaint". An accident waiting to happen. I have called and emailed bmw and dealer no one responded. And let's not even get to the tires!
2008 bmw 328i stalls while driving. Once stalled under power as I was making a left turn across traffic - dealer said no code was thrown so they were unable to address. The other stalls have not during slowdown period, not as critical but they come with no warning whatsoever which is dangerous! No accident from it yet but I no longer feel safe driving this car. First occurrence in 2010, two more recently dec 2010 & jan 2011.
On three occasions since I purchased this vehicle new, while driving and accelerating the engine cuts out and RPM's suddenly drop. The date referenced below was the first time this happened. This has happened twice since then. I have taken the vehicle in all three times. They changed some parts, but this continues to happen. At one time, I was try to get through an intersection with oncoming traffic, although there was not an accident, it was scary. Another time was changing lanes on a highway. This seems to be intermittent problem.
I took the vehicle for the following symptoms: 1.) long(er) crank 2.) engine malfunction, reduced power 3.) service engine soon 4.) heavy, erratic shaking and shuddering 5.) engine sounded like a union pacific train with loud pumping sound 6.) because of 4 + 5, decide to turn-off the engine or sometimes it just stalls before 7.) after reset, the car becomes drivable but symptoms will reoccur. 8.) able to recreate problem when I mash the gas after doing some research on an auto forum, I suspected that the caused of the problem was a failing high pressure fuel pump. The dealership kept the car for 3 days to run some tests and concluded that the fuel pump was the problem. Since they replace the part, the car has not broken down again. However, they introduce another problems. 1) the car's exhaust noise is much louder now 2) the car is less fuel efficient, lower miles per gallon 3) the car now has a turbo lag which was previously non-existent. This means bmw is falsely advertising the 335i twin-turbo has zero lag. This was true before they updated the car's software but is not longer true at this moment in time.
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