Three problems related to automatic transmission have been reported for the 2004 BMW X3. The most recently reported issues are listed below.
Intermittently when coming to a quick stop, there is a significant and heavy bang causing you to jerk forward as if someone hit you in the rear. This has happened since I bought the car as new in 2004. It has been reported to the dealer at each service call but not been fixed.
Car was in park while running. I put in drive (not cold start) had been driving for 2 hours(stopped at store). I put in drive and the engine revved like the gas pedal was floored. I tried to make it stop by putting in park. I had no choice but to cut off the engine to make it stop. I am glad no one was near the car because they would have been injured. It jumped forward very hard and I was holdiing down the brake. It lurched forward and made a loud clunking sound and I shut the car off. I think it has to do with the trans. I just bought the car new 4 days ago and the dealer and BMW said this had been fixed though a software fix . I had read about the steptronic problem and was told it was no longer an issue. Obviously this is not the case.
I purchased a 2004 BMW 325xi in March of 2004 from hunterdon BMW in lebanon, new jersey. At 10,000 miles, my transmission malfunctioned, light kept coming on so they replaced the valve body. A week later, the transmission light came on again. This time hunterdon BMW had my car in the service department over 2 weeks and replaced my transmission. However, they replaced my new transmission with a used transmission, which I tried to fight because I bought a new car, not a used car, but they kept telling me it was their "policy". They also refused to tell me how many miles this transmission had on it, they refused to tell me if it was even a BMW transmission, and they refused to extend my warranty on the transmission to reflect the amount of miles that was on the car. Furthermore, after they replaced the transmission, the car jumped/jerked at intermittent times when I was accelerating or decelerating. When I brought it into the service department to check on it, they said they couldn't duplicate the problem ? and talked to me as if it was not happening. This leaves my safety at stake when I drive. Now, a few months later, I had to bring my car in for service again: the car squeaks when it starts, the squeaking turned out to be the ac & drive belt - so they replaced it. I picked up the car only to find that the car is still squeakingit is not a safe vehicle to be in. Furthermore the loaner car, which was exactly the same as mine, drove 100 times smoother than mine. Hunterdon BMW sold me a defective vehicle.