2017 BMW I3 — Complaint #2135022
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about VISIBILITY:WINDSHIELD WIPER/WASHER filed September 29, 2025
NHTSA complaint #2135022 (ODI reference 11690435) concerns a 2017 BMW I3 and was filed on September 29, 2025. The owner reports the failure occurred on February 10, 2022. The vehicle had 32,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to California based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as visibility:windshield wiper/washer, 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 I3 cohort independently describe similar visibility:windshield wiper/washer 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 2017 BMW I3 shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2017 BMW I3. The contact stated that while driving at an undisclosed speed, the windshield wiper fluid failed to function as intended. The contact's husband checked the windshield wiper reservoir; the hose had rodent teeth marks, and part of the tubing was missing. The vehicle was taken to the dealer, where the vehicle was repaired. The contact stated that on a separate occasion, the failure persisted. The contact's husband checked the reservoir and found that rodents had eaten the tubing again and had built a nest inside the vehicle. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The contact's husband repaired the vehicle. Upon further investigation, the contact found out that the manufacturer had added soy to all the plastic tubing in the vehicle, which was an attractant to the rodents. The failure persisted. The vehicle remained at the dealer pending the repair. The manufacturer was not made aware of the issue. The failure mileage was approximately 32,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2135022 |
| ODI Number | 11690435 |
| Date Filed | September 29, 2025 |
| Failure Date | February 10, 2022 |
| VIN | WBY1Z6C35HV |
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.