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2013 BMW 535XI — Complaint #1486242

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NHTSA Complaint about POWER TRAIN:DRIVELINE:UNIVERSAL JOINT filed July 27, 2018

NHTSA complaint #1486242 (ODI reference 11114054) concerns a 2013 BMW 535XI and was filed on July 27, 2018. The owner reports the failure occurred on July 23, 2018. The vehicle had 106,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to North Carolina based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as power train:driveline:universal joint, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.

The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.

Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same BMW 535XI cohort independently describe similar power train:driveline:universal joint failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2013 BMW 535XI shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.

Vehicle
2013 BMW 535XI
Component
POWER TRAIN:DRIVELINE:UNIVERSAL JOINT
State
North Carolina
Mileage
106,000 mi

Complaint Description

TL* THE CONTACT OWNS A 2013 BMW 535XI. WHILE DRIVING APPROXIMATELY 45 MPH, A CLICKING NOISE WAS PRESENT COMING FROM THE FRONT OF THE VEHICLE. AFTER PARKING THE VEHICLE, IT WAS DISCOVERED THAT OIL WAS LEAKING UNDERNEATH THE VEHICLE. THE VEHICLE WAS TOWED TO AN INDEPENDENT MECHANIC WHO DIAGNOSED THAT THE UNIVERSAL JOINT FAILED AND PUNCTURED THE OIL PAN. THE VEHICLE WAS NOT REPAIRED. THE MANUFACTURER AND LOCAL DEALER WERE NOT NOTIFIED OF THE FAILURE. THE FAILURE MILEAGE WAS 106,000. *TT UPDATED 10/02/18*JB

Complaint Details

NHTSA Complaint ID 1486242
ODI Number 11114054
Date Filed July 27, 2018
Failure Date July 23, 2018
VIN WBAFU7C56DD

Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.