All I can say is that when this happend to me, it came on a day of freezing below zero temps. Thank God for my ext. warranty. But shame on BMW for putting this stupid design on there cars. I've never heard of this being a problem for a Ford, Chevy, MB or any other manu. I think there should be a perm. fix. So far I've had this heater thing on since my brake down last winter. So far no problems, but again it hasen't been below zero yet. I guess we will see...