2011 35d Fire/Smoldering (help needed!)

[ABMW]

All,

I'd like to give everyone an update. As some of you know, my 2009 35D, repurchased in December 2009 in a "Lemon Buyback format," as the vehicle suffered from a random stalling issue. The symptoms began on the 3rd day of ownership. Its main computer fried itself for some unknown reason. It was replaced accordingly and drove fine for 100 miles, until it again began to stall. I drove the vehicle back to the dealer, and again the main computer had fried itself. At the same time a relay was replaced on a hunch. (I can provide exact codes, for those interested, if this discussion warrants them)

The dealership confided in me that they did not believe the vehicle was repaired, and they were correct. It continued to stall and/or go into fault/safe mode. Luckily, the vehicle was showing error codes and it was not something that the techs were able to visually observe on the FASTA system

After many weeks of negotiations, and several VERY close calls in traffic, (I live in the Bay Area), BMW agreed to repurchase the vehicle for the full purchase price and replace it with a 2011 BMW X5 35d, which I then special ordered.

For the most part I bought the same car, as follows:
2011 35D, Space Grey, Adaptive Drive, Comfort Seats, Nav., Lane Departure Warning, 20" 214s with run-flats, roof rails, side step rails, smart phone integration, tire/wheel 5-year warranty, tan leather, cold weather package, rear climate control, ipod integration, tech package.

Total price was $69,980.00+/-.

The vehicle has been a dream, since I bought it on July 26, 2010. It was delivered with just 9-miles on it, and it appeared that every glitch the 2009 35d had, was solved on the 2011 35d model. The handling with the 20" wheels is amazing! Currently the vehicle has 380 miles +/-.

Last night while driving home my wife and I smelled something burning. We thought it was a restaurant, as we were stopped at a light. Though, it soon began to smell like an electrical fire. About 1-mile later, we pulled into our driveway. At the moment my wife made the following comment "something really smells bad," the car began to smoke heavily from beneath the hood.

I immediately shut the car off, and pushed the SOS button. The operator quickly assessed the situation and informed me he had called the fire dept. He also asked that I move the vehicle away from our home. We complied, and rolled the windows down, as the entire vehicle smelled of electrical burning.

The fire department took 15-minutes to arrive. By that time, the vehicle had stopped smoking. I did not witness any flames, and did not open the hood, as I did not want to add oxygen to anything that was combusting. The SOS advised the vehicle be towed to the shop on a flatbed, rather than us driving it to the dealership

Today, I got a call from an actual technician, who said they were unable to find anything burnt. They said they smelled nothing of an electrical nature, and said that the vehicle burns off large particulates at random intervals (which is true).

Though, for the life of me, this was not diesel particulate burn-off. The amount of smoke was akin to what one would encounter if one poured water onto a smoldering Bar-B-Q and it had a very heavy electrical smell. Once one has spent years around electronics, and smells circuit board frying, you don't mistake the smell.

Having said that, they can find nothing wrong with the vehicle at this time. No sign of wire harness damage, etc. They said it's possible there was contaminants on the catalytic convertor. I'm just not buying it, but if that's the reality, I'd be happy, as I really don't want to go another round with BMW.

To compound issues, the flatbed they sent had a horrific operator. I forced him to inspect the car prior to transport. Which he refused to do. I gave him a choice of inspecting it and signing off that no damage was present, or he could offload the vehicle.

He agreed to look at the vehicle, signed "no damage." and went on his way. He used thick nylon straps through the 20" 214 wheels to secure the vehicle. They had metal buckles on the ends of them. When I inspected the vehicle at the dealership today, the rear passenger wheel was deeply scratched and marred. The same wheel's black plastic fender was deeply abraded in multiple places, and the rear passenger door has a scratch in in, that is down to bare metal.

I called out the service manager to look at it. He said he was shocked and that it would probably require a replacement wheel, fender, but dealing with the paint is going to be an issue. It's too deep to buff out, and I certainly don't want to risk a body shop chop job. There are only a handful of places in the country I'd trust with reproducing a factory fresh coating, and none of them are owned or operated by BMW.

With that said, I'm looking for opinions on how to proceed. BMW will not release the vehicle. The said they're contemplating as to whether or not they should perform an SPI inspection, which is basically a safety tear-down of the vehicle to make sure its operating correctly. I was told only five (5) people in the country perform these jobs, and it could take weeks before they'll release it.

So, I have a car that smoldered, if not outright caught on fire, a dealer that is scratching their heads (again), an X5 in the shop-potentially for weeks, a damaged vehicle due to a poor tow job, and BMW Financial lost $1,050.00 of our funds from the first BMW. The Lemon. I love the car, but this is ridiculous. Is it the dealer? Is it the company?

Has anyone else heard of a 35d smoldering, to the degree described? I'm just in shock that I'm now faced wit the potential of having two lemons in a row. It befuddles my mind. Any help and/or suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks in advance all...