2011 BMW 328XI — Complaint #1558283
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about ELECTRICAL SYSTEM filed April 16, 2019
NHTSA complaint #1558283 (ODI reference 11196609) concerns a 2011 BMW 328XI and was filed on April 16, 2019. The owner reports the failure occurred on December 15, 2018. The vehicle had 68,500 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to New York based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as electrical system, 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 328XI cohort independently describe similar electrical system 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 2011 BMW 328XI shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
MY VEHICLE WAS MAKING A SQUEALING NOISE, WAS LOUDER WHEN RUNNING BUT SITTING STILL. TOOK IT TO A GARAGE AND VALVE COVER GASKET WAS LEAKING APPARENTLY. I KNOW THIS HAPPENS TO CARS BUT MY BMW IS A 2011 WITH ONLY 65500 MILES AT THE TIME.. COSTED ME 1000 DOLLARS TO FIX AND A MONTH BEFORE THIS THEY DID A RECALL ON THE PCV VALVE AND HAD IT TORE APART. MAYBE IT WAS SOMEONE'S MISTAKE WHEN REASSEMBLING THE PCV VALVE HEATER DURING RECALL AT BMW DEALER AT TOWNE AUTO IN WILLIAMSVILLE NEAR BUFFALO NY?? IDK BUT THAT IS LOW MILEAGE FOR THIS TO HAPPEN
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1558283 |
| ODI Number | 11196609 |
| Date Filed | April 16, 2019 |
| Failure Date | December 15, 2018 |
| VIN | WBAPK7C54BA |
Similar ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Complaints for 2011 BMW 328XI
WHEN I TURN ON MY AIR CONDITIONING MY CAR OVERHEATS WHEN I WAS DRIVING HOME FROM WORK IT STARTED TO OVERHEAT AND I WAS STUCK ON THE HIGHWAY FOR ABOUT 2 HOURS I NEED THIS PROBLEM FIXED AS SOON AS POSSI
11/2016 - CAR STALLED ON THE INTERSTATE AND WOULDN'T RESTART. COMPLETE POWER FAILURE (ENGINE, BRAKES, STEERING) - MECHANIC REPLACED A GAS VALVE. THE EXACT SAME PROBLEM HAPPENED TWICE MORE. BMW REPLA
BEFORE ANY PROMPTS ON THE NAVIGATION SCREEN EVER CAME UP, I WOULD OFTEN SOMETIMES SMELL SOMETHING BURNING OR GIVING OFF A HOT RUBBER SMELL WHICH I ADDRESSED AS SOON I PURCHASED THE VEHICLE FROM QUEENS
FOR SEVERAL MONTHS MY AIR CONDITIONER HAD BEEN BLOWING WARMER AIR THAN NORMAL BUT WAS TOLERABLE. A WEEK AGO, WHILE DRIVING ON THE INTERSTATE I SMELLED A BURNING PLASTIC SMELL. ALMOST IMMEDIATELY MY AI
2 RECALLS FOR RISK OF FIRE FILED IN OCT 2017. 17V676 & 17V683. NOTICE RECEIVED 12/02/ 2017. TO DATE 8/28/2018 NO REMEDY AVAILABLE! BOTH KNOWN FIRE RISK AND NO ACTION FROM BMW 9+MONTHS LATER.
Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.