Other body or interior problem on the 2001 BMW 325I
1 crash 1 fire 3 injuries 5 of the 14 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 body or interior problem gets reported
There are 14 reports of other body or interior problem on the 2001 BMW 325I, 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 88,000 miles. It is the 2nd most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 114,400 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 crash, 1 a fire and 3 an injury are 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 $200–$2,000 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 5 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2004, at a median of 60,000 miles, and latest on the 2001 at 115,000 miles.
By volume the 2006 carries the most reports, with 56; the 2001 has 14. 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.
I am writing with regards to file# 0304924 a complaint with bmw north america. As you received copies of all bmw's communications with me you are aware that a final repair attempt letter was sent to me. I would like to make you aware that on 10-09-03i came out of my office and my front floorboard was full of water again. I called bmw and they requested that I bring the car in on 10-10-03. I also called mrs. Brandi dolfi at bmw north america and she is out of the office. This problem started well within the lemon law limits and I would like your help in resolving this issue. As a side note the car has been in the shop 4 other times for other structural problems since the last repair attempt in may of 2003. Any assistance you could give me in this matter would be greatly appreciated. *la
Dt*: the contact stated while traveling at 45 MPH on a busy highway the accelerator pedal detached. The vehicle was maneuvered to the side of the road and towed to a dealership. The accelerator pedal was replaced. One year later while driving the accelerator pedal detached again. The vehicle was towed to the dealership and the accelerator pedal was replaced again. The contact also reported another safety defect. While sitting in the driver seat, the heated seat coils burned a hole through the seat causing injury to the contact and the manufacturer has been contacted. Updated 02/24/06. *jb
The automatic power door locks on a bmw 3-series (e46) are known to randomly fail, resulting in it becoming impossible for any occupants to get out of a vehicle. This is apparently due to a faulty gm5 relay (general module #5) supplied as an oem component in the vehicle by bmw (see http://http://www.bmwgm5.com/). Failure occurs about 1 out of 3 attempts to unlock the automatic door locks. It is known that replacement of the gm5 relay solves the problem. Someone eventually will be burned alive due to this faulty component. *tr
Also reported on the 2001 BMW 325I
Tail light, brake light or signal failure
Other lighting problem
Other visibility problem
Other powertrain problem
Other electrical problem
Other engine problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 14 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 14 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 body or interior problem happen on the 2001 BMW 325I?
Across 6 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 115,000 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 body or interior problem on the 2001 BMW 325I?
14 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.7 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