Can you post more about the recall or Call to Service?
Is it only for the E71?


I had to do Transfer case and Drive Shaft already, about 2.5K out of pocket.

Did you look at the pdf in post #3? You should have received a letter from BMW NA if you had an affected vehicle. A service advisor can look you're vehicle up and see if there are open warranty repairs, not yet completed campaigns or the status of warranties for your vehicle. In this case, it is not a recall but a warranty extension for which the repair would only come into play if there's a problem with the driveshaft before 10 years/120k miles on certain vehicles. That's at least according to the letter I got and report I got from a service advisor.

Yesterday the front driveshaft broke on our 2011 50i with a 12/10 build date (a few weeks outside the recall parameter) and 53k miles on the odometer. We had it towed to the nearest dealer. Looks like there was some damage to the transmission as it was leaking what appeared to be transmission fluid.

I would certainly like to understand why our car was not recalled and that the recall was restricted only to cars with the noted build dates when it's clear the problem extends beyond those dates (indicated by the fact that the extended warranty covers a much larger group of cars versus the recall).

Very discouraging to find out that BMW was aware as early as 2014 that our car had this defect, did not correct it, and merely left us to have it break by chance. We were two hours from home and had to be towed off the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

Well I have 8 months of factory warranty left and a 5/2013 build on my 2013 35D so I will bring the SIB and even though it's outside the production cutoff by a month I'm betting that it will need to be done - the shaft used in assembly could have been made a few months prior.

Just heard from the dealer. When the driveshaft let go it cracked the side of the transmission case (I believe at least one other forum member had that happen, and it needs a new transmission.) They estimate it will take a week to procure it...apparently it's air freighted in from Germany.

At least they are finally giving us a loaner car tomorrow, although it's a hour south of here and I have to figure out how to get there. And he did confirm that all the repairs will be covered under the extended driveshaft warranty.

I'm going to bring a copy of the $169 towing bill and request they ask BMW to reimburse us for that.

The service advisor explained that the reason for the extended warranty (versus recall) was that they expect only a small % to break, and unfortunately ours was one of them.

It was easy to tell that he was expected me to go ballistic with the news on the transmission, and I went easy on him as he is just the messenger.

I think it's unethical that BMW knew of the potential of this at least as early as 2014, and let us keep using the car while failing to warn us of the potential consequences. We never received the "extended warranty" letter, and even if we had the letter failed to mention how dangerous this is (and they are certainly well aware of the danger as it's referenced in their form recall letter).

If BMW was fully upfront about this at least some customers might recognize the noise/vibration and stop using the car before the driveshaft completely flies apart.

Why didnt BMW recall this?

Let me ask: Have you reported this 'incident' to NHTSA? as an event that caused you to potentially lose control??

As to your first question, again the service advisor explained that BMW expects only a small percentage of the driveshafts to break, and that's why there is an extended warranty on my car versus a recall. I have to say that when he told me this it was almost like he was reading from a canned script.

Sounds like this was a bean counter decision, that someone figured out it would be less expensive for them to repair the ones that break, even with the collateral damage, versus recalling them all. Obviously they are not very concerned that some of their customers are going to end up stranded on the side of the road.

I do plan to file a complaint with NHTSA once this entire episode is complete and I know the whole story. I'm not sure that this would have potentially caused loss of control of the car. What's most scary is that I saw that at least one owner reported that the broken driveshaft punctured a hole in the floor pan of his car.

BMW has pulled this kind of crap before. The early mini coopers had well documented substantial premature failure rates of the electric power steering pumps. We owned one of them. You would be driving, and all the sudden there was no power steering, and of course the car became much harder to control. Don't know what could be more safety related than that.

BMW quietly redesigned the pump, leaving the owners of cars with the original pump to fend for themselves, the replacement cost being about $1400-$1500, and never warning the owners of the potential danger.

Years later the Canadian government finally went after BMW regarding this, and shortly after the federal government followed them.

It was something like seven years after we paid to have the pump replaced that BMW reimbursed us. Even though we no longer owned the car, we heard about the reimbursement program through one of the Mini owners forums, and for some reason we still had the dealer service order showing that the pump was replaced.

Would you believe that BMW tried to deny our claim because they said we had no proof that we actually paid the bill. I went ballistic, and started calling their executive offices here in New Jersey and pestering them until we finally received the reimbursement check.

After my experiences with BMW I really believe that they have a company culture of being unethical. And after seeing with Volkswagen did, I have to wonder if the issue is rampant throughout the German automobile industry.

They were able to procure a new transmission in just two days, and the repair was finished yesterday. Picked it up this morning and so far everything is fine, although probably tomorrow I'll have a look for myself underneath.

Based on the part number shown on the receipt, the "new" transmission they gave us is not "new", but merely a rebuilt unit.

The BMW list price for the rebuilt unit is more than $9000, and the price for a brand new unit exceeds $14000, although discounts exceeding 15% seem to be plentiful on line. I wonder if the beancounters are re-thinking their decision not to recall these cars (and at the very least just inspect them) versus doing nothing and seeing how many break.

No response on our request to be reimbursed for the $169 towing bill yet.

Nice outcome,I'm glad they covered it. I would stay firm and insist on reimbursement of the towing. Hmmm, I need to look at my 2012.

There was never any question it would be covered as it's the exact concern the extended warranty refers to.

I still find the letter BMW sent to the owners announcing the extended warranty terribly disturbing.

How could the letter possibly claim they "are committed to delivering the ultimate in product satisfaction to our customers" while at the same time failing to disclose the the real reason for the letter, that driveshafts are flying apart?

Why no disclosure of the implications of the driveshaft flying apart, how to recognize it when it happens, and what the customer should do when it happens?

It sounded like a machine gun being shot off underneath the car. Did they expect us to drive the car 20 miles to the nearest dealer after hearing that noise given that we were still able to move the car because the rear driveshaft was still attached?

How about telling us what to expect to hear or feel if the driveshaft started to fail?

At least with the airbag debacle they told us the details and implications of the problem. Why did they avoid that here?

No one expects any car to be fully trouble free, but when you know of a problem as serious as this, to leave your customers in the dark about it is inexcusable.