Julien has to hand in his BMW due to a technical defect, but his car went up in flames two years ago (Hemiksem)

When Julien Herremans received a letter from BMW in the mail last month, he was astonished. He would have to return his BMW Gran Turismo because it was determined that there might be a problem with the exhaust gas circulator. In the most extreme case, this could even lead to a vehicle fire. But it turns out that his car was already completely burned out in 2022.

“Our dream car was delivered in November 2013. There were no problems all those years and we ensured that maintenance at our concessionaire was always done on time,” says Julien. “On Wednesday, September 6, 2022 we left for a short holiday to Italy, towards Lake Garda. Ten kilometers before our destination I suddenly received a message on the dashboard that we urgently had to drive to an authorized BMW garage.”

“But after barely a minute we smelled in the car that something was wrong. I tried to put out the fire with the fire extinguisher, but there was no stopping it. In just a few minutes our car was on fire. We had no choice but to flee. All that remained of the car was a pile of twisted steel, even the rims had melted.”

“In our search for a car to continue, we came into contact with someone from Niel who worked at a rental company there. He said then that it was not the first time he had been confronted with a burnt-out BMW.”

“We received an umbrella and a 2,000 euro discount for the purchase of a second-hand car. There was no mention of technical expertise”

Julien Herremans

BMW owner

Back in Belgium, the Hemiksem resident went to his concessionaire. “We received an umbrella and a 2,000 euro discount for the purchase of a second-hand car. There was no mention of technical expertise. Finally, there was nothing left of my car. It also doesn’t occur to you to have such a pile of twisted steel brought from Italy to Belgium. How much would that have cost me?”

Until the letter from BMW arrived in the mail last month. “It was all explained nicely, but they forgot that my car had already gone up in flames. If they themselves indicate that a technical defect could occur, isn’t that a sign of the future? Because of those experiences, I also started looking things up and found that more BMWs have already caught fire for some inexplicable reason. All I hear now are apologies and that they cannot provide further compensation due to the lack of technical expertise.”

Cause

In a letter to the victim, BMW Group Belux already stated that it regrets the situation, but that little can be done. “There has never been an invitation to BMW Belux for technical expertise. It is therefore not possible to indicate a cause. We would also like to refer to the follow-up that was given to your file in 2022. Your concessionaire has contacted us to provide explanations. We proposed a ‘commercial gesture’, without any admission of guilt. No expertise was carried out at that time,” the statement reads.

“We regret the turn of events and fully understand the disappointment,” says BMW Belux spokesperson Jeroen Lissens. “Because there was no expertise, it is impossible to make a statement about the cause of the fire. There are 101 possibilities that can cause a car fire. We no longer have any means to prove that this specific problem was the cause.”

Has your BMW also burned out and you don’t know what the cause was? Respond via [email protected].