Other engine problem on the 2000 BMW 3 Series
1 fire 1 of the 7 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
Only 6 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When other engine problem gets reported
There are 7 reports of other engine problem on the 2000 BMW 3 Series, 6 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 95,000 miles. It is the 4th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 107,500 miles | — | — |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 1 a fire is mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $300–$4,000 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 6 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2013, at a median of 1,700 miles, and latest on the 2000 at 110,000 miles.
By volume the 2007 carries the most reports, with 15; the 2000 has 7. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
Tl* the contact owns a 2000 bmw 323ci. The contact stated the vehicle had been parked for approximately twenty minutes when he was informed there was yellow smoke pouring through the interior of the vehicle. Suddenly, the vehicle erupted into twenty foot flames from the dashboard area. The fire department was able to extinguish the fire. A fire report was available. The vehicle was parked next to a building which was partially damaged. The vehicle was destroyed. The manufacturer advised an investigator would further inspect the cause of the failure. The VIN was not available. The failure and current mileage was approximately 83,000.
Reverse gear (automatic transmission) stopped working without warning. Car acts as if it is neutral, engine just revs. Car has been well maintained. Was surprised to find it is a very common occurrence with this model, and that there is a website devoted to the problem (noreverse.org). Also learned that a recall was issued for cadillacs that used the same transmission and had the same problem.
The car transmission will not go in reverse. The issue happens suddenly with no warning, and acts exactly as if you were in neutral gear. There is a dedicated site called http://www.noreverse.org that documents thousands of cases from bmw owners that have the same problem. Bmw north america has acknowledged that its transmissions in vehicles 1999-2003 have this issue, but fails to offer any assistance on this huge safety issue. In november, I pulled out of my driveway normally to drive to work. When I arrive at work and attempted to reverse into the space, the car acted like it was in neutral. The vehicle continues to act this way. All other gears work normal (meaning it drives fine forward), it is just that you cannot engage reverse. *tr
Also reported on the 2000 BMW 3 Series
Other powertrain problem
Control arm, ball joint or bushing failure
Transmission will not engage a gear
Complete transmission failure
Differential or transfer case failure
Fuel tank, filler or EVAP failure
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 7 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 7 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does other engine problem happen on the 2000 BMW 3 Series?
Across 6 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 110,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other engine problem on the 2000 BMW 3 Series?
7 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 36 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed