>>Has anyone else heard of a 35d smoldering,

Our 2009 X35d burned in 3-4 minutes.

18000 km, got it as a demo at 9000 km.

My wife had been driving it for 10 min in a winter morning. She could smell "trouble", opened the windows and pulled over, by the time she was getting out of the vehicle she could see flames coming out under the hood ...

She called 911, apparently someone had already called because they knew the location. This happened 6:20AM in February, so for someone to be able notice and call...the car must have caught fire (wife actually things she saw the flames in the rearview mirror first).

Fire was so intense – charred the fence of the house where the incident took place


I had brought the car for service less than a month before that - Jan 16. We had been experiencing a "battery disconnect" message - it started after the car had been parked in the garage for a week (while we were on vacation).

Got the message 4-5 times and finally brought it in for service . Had to leave it overnight – reprogramming….

I was fumbling with the statement of work couple a days later and noticed “a part – fuel heater - still gives an error, part backordered” remark. Called the dealership, … “Oh, yep you have to bring it back, we have the part now…we don’t know how long its going to take, book a loaner”. I got the run around regarding the loaner, so had to push the date for a week later. The car burned the they before it was to be serviced.

Note that I was not advised that the car needed to be brought for a service – noticed the “…part backordered …” remark by chance. The very bottom of the paperwork stated “Vehicle mobile”.

BMW Canada and the dealership have been ABSOLUTELY not interested to discuss the issue ("it's an insurance matter now" they said).

Insurance could not determine the cause.


You will find several cases on the internet (not diesel models) - ironically, the cars were so badly burned that no conclusive report could be drawn.

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