general problems of the 2002 BMW 540

The contact owns a 2002 BMW 540i. The contact stated that it took ten attempts to start the vehicle. The failure occurred at least thirty times. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The approximate failure mileage was 166,000.

I was driving in stop and go traffic when I noticed the steering felt a little stiffer than usual. After about 5 miles and better flowing traffic I pulled into a restaurant for dinner when my upper radiator hose exploded. I pulled into a stall and opened the hood to inspect what happened. The hose was very apparent and after further investigation I noticed the power steering pumps pulley at a very sharp angle compared to linear with the serpentine belt. I can only assume that from the bracket on the pump breaking, it caused a chain reaction of events. First the bracket brocket putting the pump at a steep angle n forcing the belt to go off track which then caused all the other accessories to be disabled including the water pump which overheated the car.

I went out to my BMW 540i and found the driver's power seat all the way back in the horizontal position. I did not leave it this way, so this was confusing to me. When I attempted to move it back upright into a comfortable driving position, it did not respond- the seat was dead. I could not move it manually, either. I was forced to drive the car a short distance to drop my son off at an activity, so I decided to drive it and lean forward while driving. My plan was to take the car to my local BMW mechanic later that night and drop it off to be repaired. My son and I were only two minutes into our drive, I was leaning forward, and he said "do you smell smoke?" I did smell it, and was looking around to see what was wrong. Then my son said "dad, your seat is on fire!" I looked down, and saw flames coming out from under my seat. We pulled the car over and put out the fire with his water bottle. The heated seats were not being used, this happened on July 19th, during the summer. My local BMW shop is telling me this is a $3100 repair. The part in question that caused the fire, per the claims adjuster, is the "general module. " I understand the car is 10 years old, but it simply blows my mind that a car can randomly catch on fire internally like this. BMW north America is not taking ownership to this situation, and has offered no help.