My BMW X3 20d: 5 year update

Everyone who owns a BMW has heard of the tendency of the door handles to discolor and turn sticky over time.

BHPian Hayek recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

As many of you know, I purchased my car in January 2017, and it is now getting close to completing 5 years. That of course implies that both the extended warranty and BSI package would expire in coming weeks. Further, I planned to take the car on a driving holiday to South India, and wanted to be sure that it is in fine fettle before the journey.

I therefore went through the car with a fine tooth comb, and discovered two issues which needed to be addressed:

• A disintegrating driver door handle coin holder.

Everyone who owns a BMW has heard of the tendency of the door handles to discolor and turn sticky over time. And while that has not yet happened to my car, I noticed that the coin holder plastic had started disintegrating.

• Some suspension noise.

There was also slight suspension noise from the front left suspension, which I decided should be dealt with asap.

Sent the car to BMW Infinity Lalbaug. After inspecting the car, they agreed to deal with both of these issues under warranty. Parts were not available, but they said the suspension parts would come in a few days, while the door handle would take a while. However, they agreed to cover the handle under warranty even if the part arrived after the warranty expired. This process meant that the car was off the road for a few days.

The suspension parts arrived a few days later, and I sent the car once again - and it was duly repaired. I was relieved, and thought I was all set for my journey. But when my driver went to pick up the car, he found the following error - the key fob battery needed to be replaced. Fortunately, that was available in stock, and the replacement was duly carried out.

I got the car back, and drove it for a couple of days. I had to travel out of town on work, and my driver tried to start the car the next morning. And then found that the car was refusing to move, and the following error message appeared:

It turned out that the electronic parking brake actuator had failed, and this meant that the car was jammed in parked position. A call to Infinity led to their dispatching an engineer who released the brake, but the car had to go back to Infinity for the third time in just over a week.

The required parts were not in stock, but my service advisor was very proactive realizing I was just a few days away from a long drive, and managed to source the parts from Poona. Repairs were duly done, and I was finally set for my driving holiday. More on the driving holiday in a subsequent post, but suffice to say the car worked flawlessly through the nearly 3000 kms I drove in the last 8 days. The door handle still needs to be dealt with of course.

Here's what BHPian zipzapzoom had to say on the matter:

@Hayek

Its so coincidental that I have faced exactly these same issues with my 6 year old X3, but in different order. And yes my car too is serviced at Turbhe Infinity.

• The shock absorbers failed first, the car was jumping up and down and there I was accusing bad road quality but my Verna on same roads ran smoothly. So I sent in for a check and bad shock absorbers were diagnosed.
• One fine day the car won't budge at all and the faulty brake actuator was diagnosed, Infinity service sent two techs home, they disengaged the stuck actuator and took away the car on the break down vehicle.
• Then the key FOB failed with low battery same was sorted out by self, I simply opened it and changed the battery, however the settings were reset by the service advisor.
• Lastly the sticky plastic inserts in the door, it started with driver side door first and then to passenger side door. I had suffered the same problem in my 3 Series earlier and was resorting to various local juggads. But this time I inquired with the service center and they confirmed that it can be easily taken care of in warranty.

All the above problems were handled efficiently and very professionally (car stayed with them only for a day, i generally keep my driver waiting)

Can't comment how much each of these replacements or repairs would have cost me out of warranty.

Once again this proves the point how critical or important is extended warranty for these cars.

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