NHTSA complaint #11690441

Owner complaint summary

The car suddenly dead in the intersection when driving the car, then can’t start the car, can’t shift the gear, stay in neutral position all the time. A message came out staying “Brake problem “! After around 20 minutes, system messaged us “problem solved, OK to drive “, so we were able to start the engine and start driving as normal. I called Service center let them know the scenario but got no answer. After 4 days same problem reoccurring again, this time car dead during left turn, fortunately no car hit our car (we were having 2 babies in the car). A lot of messages showed up, still mentioned “Brake problems “, and after 15-20 minutes, message us again - “Problem solved, ok to drive “. We have AAA tow the car to BMW service center later since we didn’t feel the message was reliable. The service center identified the problem and replaced the Mechatronics Control Unit and returned the car to us after 7 days. I am concerned about the car’s system message, it’s mentioned “Problem solved, OK to drive “, the message could misleading and have been fatal if we continued driving the vehicle to freeway. After we got vehicle back we were still very cautious about the car. I sent my concern to New Central BMW Alhambra CA about one month ago -to the service manager and requested a written explanation of why this faulty message occurred and how BMW engineer plans to prevent this from happening again. But there was no answer so far. There were a “Brake problem recall” and a “Emission Recall “for this vehicle and we went through the procedure already before these 2 brake problems.