Seat Broken Problems of BMW X3

I had a problem with the driver's side seat warmer in my 2006 BMW X3 starting on about October 21, 2013. While I was driving on a couple different occasions, I felt a "shock" in my left thigh. I didn't think anything about it until the seat warmer stopped working all together. I brought it to the dealer to fix and found that the entire heating element would have to be replaced, at a cost of over $1500. As I am looking into the problem, I found that this has happened to numerous others. I am fortunate that there was not a more serious injury, and that my seat was not damaged to the extent that others have encountered. However, this is an unacceptable problem and BMW should be taking care of it.

See all problems of the 2006 BMW X3 🔎.

Started the car in my driveway this morning and let the engine idle for a minute or two before driving off, I energized the drivers side heated seat to the lowest setting, after 10 sec or so I started to smell a burning odor and felt a sharp pain under my left thigh. I turned off the heated seat immediately, shut the car off, and got out off the car to see what the problem was. I noticed a small black burn mark on the seat that was very warm to the touch. I called BMW north America to file a complaint, the lady on the phone took my information and statement as to what had happened and suggested that I take the vehicle to an authorized BMW dealer for inspection. I had the vehicle inspected later this afternoon by concord BMW and was told by the service manager that since the car was out of warranty that the dealer would not cover any repair cost of the damaged seat. I asked if they would contact BMW north America on my behalf and ask them to authorize and pay for the repair due to the severity of the event, heated seats are not suppose to catch fire and myself or someone else driving the vehicle could have been burned. I was told no, that I would have to take it up with BMW north America on my own.