On August 1, 2016, we started a drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas with our two dogs. We left around 1:30p on what should have been an easy 4-hour drive. About 20-mins outside of Baker (90-mins from Las Vegas), the car suddenly slowed and sputtered while we driving on the interstate. Thankfully, we were in the farthest right lane and able to quickly get to the side of the road. If we were in the fast lane, this could have been deadly. Our other stroke of luck was that the car was still able to run allowing us to use the air conditioning while we sat in 110-degree godforsaken desert monsoonal humidity. The dogs probably would have had heatstroke and/or perished without A/C as there was no shade available outside (remote desert).

We hit the BMW SOS button in the car which connected us to BMW roadside assistance. Of course, being in the middle of nowhere, the tow truck had a hard time finding us. Three hours later, he showed up. He towed us to BMW in Las Vegas where the car was diagnosed as having a fuel pump failure. No one could give us a decent explanation as to why that would happen in a car with less than 17,000 miles.

Still unhappy with the "sh*t happens" explanation and being suspicious by nature, I spent some time on the internet researching the issue. Well, well, well. Turns out this is a current and historical BMW problem. They had fuel pump problems in 2010 (along with a class action lawsuit) and in 2015 they issued another recall. Not for our model year, but for the year prior.

This could have been a deadly situation.