It does it intermittently. If I have a DVD in the player and then stop the car, when I re-start and press the DVD power button, I get the one-second screen flash and then nothing. I can't even eject the DVD. Usually, after several more stops and starts, the DVD will eject and I can start over.

Also, the DVD will occasionally stop playing in the middle of a movie and the entire system becomes unresponsive.

Of course, BMW Service can never replicate the problem. Bah!

I can't imagine we're the only two owners with this problem. There really should be a known fix. This whole situation has challenged my loyalty to the brand.

Wow dude... that is mine exactly! I tell you what, I got my guys to replicate it the first try at my dealer. Worse case, maybe you can have your SA contact my SA and they can discuss it. I am slated to pick up mine today.. they claim it's fixed.. but based on what you're saying with 3 repairs, maybe it's not so I'll wait first and see.

Keep you posted

Please post an update with the results. If it's fixed, I'll definitely suggest that my SA get in touch with yours.

Fingers crossed for both of us.

Having same problem in my X5, with the unit either freezing (no response, cannot eject DVD) when you first turn it on, or turning off in the middle of a movie. Had the car in for service last week and dealer claims in testing the DVD unit kept resetting itself causing the lockup problem. They have a new unit on order. Now what is interesting is we never had the problem when we first took delivery of the X5 in April 2007. Had the car in for service in June to address a problem with the steering wheel not returning to the previous memory position when you turned the car back on. Dealer said it was a known issue and they flashed the car with a new version of code. While it corrected the steering wheel problem, the DVD problem started right afterwards. Flaky code rather than a hardware issue??? I'll let you know if the new unit helps or not.

If your problem is anything like mine, it will not help. I was just called earlier today by my SA and he asked if they could keep the car another night. He said they'd been talking to New Jersey and the Factory, as well as Germany about a software patch as the problem isn't in the DVD drive.. They had replaced mine and it worked for about 1 hour then failed in the same way again. The problem is to do with how the DVD player is recognized by the iDrive central computers.

They are hoping this new coding from the factory will fix my problem, but aren't promising anything.

keep you all posted, but in the meantime, contact your SA's and tell them about what we're all learning, which is to say that the problem isn't in the DVD drive.

update....

Day 3 now, and the dealer is profusely apologetic.. said BMW is working hard to find the problem, and has several engineers on it. They've since replaced and re-software several components and no luck. They are offering to give me a BMW loaner for the duration and have offered to do an interior leather/carpet protection on the car ($800 value thru the finance guy) free of charge..

I'll give them A for effort..

Now that's service and effort. Same thing happened to me when BMW kept my E53 for a week because of a sun roof problem. I was not happy with their BMW loaner (smells) so they called Enterprise and got me an almost brand new Audi A8 rental. Just wish they will diagnosed these problems right the first time. Please keep us posted of any progress.

Ok, so they've given me a 3.0 X5, with a functioning DVD player to drive while they sort out the problem. The shop foreman (a great guy), said that BMW has 21 known cases nation wide with the same problem, so to me since it's not all of them (clearly), then it must be some defective hardware component. So, I'm sure they'll track down which one and replace it.

1 week into it, and the vehicle was supposedly fixed.. they tested it for a day and gave it back to me yesterday. Today, its' back to not working. This is odd to say the least. Apparently it's only some 21 vehicles in the country with this problem, so I hope this means it's a simple matter of swapping out all the DVD hardware, but who knows?

Anyone else with a failed DVD system and a fix yet?

The car is in today to get the DVD unit replaced. We'll see if it fixes the problem or not. Will report back later.