Sad news;

[ard]

1. Good software is good software; bad is bad. BMW seems to be more challenged than other marques.

2. One of the biggest issues I see personally with BMW is a lack of quality field service (ie their POS Dealer network). Unfortunately they can only be as good as the mechanics that are employed by the independent dealerships. Furthermore, as less money is made, less training is offered....

3. Just like you have half truths about "California hates Diesel, that's why the CARB approval is delayed", you get stories like above ("BMW is buying back alot of cars due to software") that are based on natural biases people already have (against software, against the government, against California CARB). If the car has computer error reporting systems, and a noisy module is tripping random codes that the dealer cannot figure out, the 'story' becomes "bad software". Not necessarily.

4. Truth be known, today's 3rd and 4th generation software is pretty robust- yes it can be better, but I do not pine for the (good) old days without a good reason.

A

[deutsch100]

I agree with THK. California is pretty pro-consumer. It does NOT have to be the same problem, 3 times, to be the only grounds for a lemon buy back. It can be how many days the car has been in the service dept, and you not being able to use the car.

When BMW bought my '07 X5 back...they and the dealer were awesome. When my '08 4.8i was awful, and I wanted out of it as well...they were not awesome at all! :-o

[Penguin]

The California Lemon Law seems to be a bit more vague than some other states' lemon laws:

Consumers - Motor Vehicle Warranty and Lemon Law - California Dept. of Justice - Office of the Attorney General

[Sher KamaL]

With my experiences on M cars. Best would be to get rid of it now, back to BMWNA. I did that in South Africa with an E60 M5. The car just either switched off at anytime or refused to start? was brand new, not even run in yet. The engine was perfect, it's the ECU, M-DME & only God knows which computer link just keeps on failing. Once all their investigations were completed (4 weeks) BMW-SA, replaced me with a brand new M5. I was also given a loan 550i at the time for the gross inconvenience. P.S. They never truly found the problem & the M5 was apparently shipped back to Germany, so I was told?

So honestly if your problem persists, insist on your money back or a brand new M.

[DSE]

I ran into repeated issues of my 2010 X5 throwing mutiple / dozens of inexplicable error codes. It was not clear what was triggering them, but they eventually included engine, airbags, abs, and brakes codes, even though the car was driving fine (except in the last instance, when the engine ran rough and wouldn't restart right away ). The codes tended to go away if we restarted the car.

If you get the car back, I suggest you take a video camera or phone wityh you. If it happens again, take a picture of of the i-drive screen and dashboard so your dealer can see all the error codes and what the car is doing.

After being in the shop mutliple times and unable to resolve what was causing the error codes, my dealer and BMW volunteered to swap my X5 for a 2011 model, which thankfully has been fine.

While I monitored the situation with the lemon law in mind, we never raised it and didn't feel the need to raise a huge stink about the problem because the dealer had arranged a loaner for us the whole time the car was in the shop, and we knew and expected the dealer and BMW to fix the problem or buy the car back.

I personally feel this type of problem can and does happen in any modern vehicle (or any complex technilogical device for that matter), but in the end, BMW stood by their product, so we are still happy customers.

[anzer]

Yes, agree with DSE, get a video camera and take pictures of the codes and problems as they come up ..I did this and it was really helpful to prove that there were real problems rather than the dealer trying to replicate them in their own time ..and often with gremlin electric problems they can be there one moment and not the next (typically there for you but not the dealer/mechanic etc)