LEGAL Qs: coolant blew AGAIN & steering buttons fixed, but you won't believe this...

[crosvs]

*I apologize for the length of this note, but if you can make the time to read this, I'm sure you'll agree this is a VERY bizarre situation BMW has got me into. Thank you for your time.*

Ok so I was driving down to SD from SF last night on the 5-South when, while downshifting to pass a slower car, I suddenly saw a bunch of "smoke" coming out the back and then recognized it as the familiar "grey steam" of coolant fluid. Seconds later, sure enough, the "CHECK COOLANT" msg came on and seconds later, CHECK TEMPERATURE and sure enough the temp was nudging into the red. Obviosuly I pulled over, called BMW Assist; my parents; and then the CHP as it was getting dark and I was in the middle of nowhere. 2.5 hrs later the tow truck AND my parents arrived; my X5 got taken to Weber BMW in Fresno; I got driven home, and flew down to SD today for school tomorrow whereupon I got a rental.

Now for the 2 weird (and unrelated) bits:

(1) COOLANT

A coolant hose burst back in May, if you remember, and was fixed by BMW San Diego. I was advised that since that particular fixed portion of the coolant system was now new and strong, it would necessarily render the other hoses in the system WEAKER and that I should not be surprised if they eventually rupture also.

Well, 2 weeks ago -- just before my trip to Europe -- I took my X5 to Sonnen BMW in San Rafael per the advice of my service manager there to give it a "full 100K mile inspection" to make sure we can catch anything and everything before my warranty expired. By the end of the day, I was advised that my car was A-OK and that everythign checked out -- nothing looked out of the ordinary, worn out, or otherwise suggesting possible failure in the foreseeable future.

And of course therein lies my question: legally, I call this professional negligence. If I had asked them to check my brake pads, and they said they loooked fine, and a mere 2 weeks / 1,000 miles later my brakes failed due to worn pads and I had suffered an accident, there would be NO question about it. So I posit that failure to recognize worn coolant hoses is analogous to the brake pads hypothetical. Therefore, I want to demand that BMW pay me all costs, including the consequential damages including, but not limited to: (1) repair costs; (2) fuel and meal expenses for my parents' round trip to pick me up; (3) airplane ticket cost from SFO to SAN; and (4) rental car costs; and (5) towing costs if such costs are present.

So what do you think?

(2) STEERING WHEEL BUTTONS

If you also remember, several months ago I had complained by that the steering wheel buttons' illumination AND functionality had begun to intermittently go out until finally failing completely a couple months ago. Neither Sonnent BMW; nor BMW of Beverly Hills; nor BMW San Diego were either able or willing to investigate and solve the problem. Curiously, they all gave me basically the same response although questioned independently and at different times: "First of all, this issue is likely NOT going to be covered by warranty, as it's electrical. Secondly, it is most likely caused by a computer glitch; (in the case of Sonnen BMW, they declared that in fact it *WAS NECESSARILY* a computer glitch, but that they couldn't figure out WHERE or WHAT the glitch was to fix); but to locate and isolate that glitch could take an indeterminate number of hours potentially resulting in exorbitantly high costs. Basically, you'd do best to forget about it."

So for the entire summer I made do without those buttons: no cruise control; no volume control; no track/channel control. Sounds funny, but honestly, once you're used to them, it sucks to not have them. Esp volume and cruise control.

Well. It occurred to me to ask a local BMW speciality store. Their response? "Hey no problem, that's a common problem on these cars!" A few hours worth of labor, and the thing was good as new. Turns out that the mechanism which keeps the wires wrapped around a "roller" inside the wheel had worn through the wires resulting in their intermittent and eventual absolute failure.

So question: WHY did NO BMW dealerships want to fix the problem for me?!?!

Thank you everyone for any and all insight you might offer.

--Marc