The government depends primarily upon formal complaints filed by owners. I wonder how many people have actually made formal safety complaints at the NHTSA.GOV website, including their VIN? (Complaints with a VIN get much more attention, as it give NHTSA the required tracking information for statistical analysis).

So if anyone thinks they have a safety defect, they should report it to NTHSA, including their VIN:

Office of Defects Investigation (ODI), File A Safety Complaint

That is the one action guaranteed to get BMW NA's attention.

P.S. In checking, it would appear that only two people in the entire United States have filed safety complaints about the 2009 BMW X5, and one of the two was that his fuel gauge didn't work. If that is all the more motivated the X5 owners are, I doubt there will be any recalls. (There are 16 complaints for the 2008 models)

P.P.S A further analysis of the 2008 complaints on the NHTSA website shows that 7 of them are duplicate postings, and 1 is actually for the X3. So there is actually a total of 9 complaints from all 2008 X5 owners filed with NHTSA. I have posted this data not to suggest there are not real and/or pervasive problems, but to point out that it is rather difficult for the government to respond if people do not bother to report the safety problems, e.g., if you were a governmental official reading the above, would you think there was a potential recall issue for the X5?