On December 26th, 2010 my daughter was driving our 2005 BMW X3 when it stopped in the middle of a street about a block from our house. There was a lot of smoke and for a moment she thought that the vehicle was on fire. We got it towed to a local service station that diagnosed the problem as hyrdo-locking. They cleaned it up ($280 with towing) but did not have a fix for the problem. I called Motorwerks BMW and explained the problem and was told I will get a call back. I didn't hear back and called again after a couple of days. I was asked to bring it to the dealership and the earliest appointment was January 24th, 2011.

On January 20, 2011, my wife was driving the same vehicle home from work at 11:30 pm when it stopped in the middle of a busy and dangerous intersection in Fargo, North Dakota. The temperature outside was -22F. She must have driven the car about 2 miles when she saw a huge white smoke coming out of tail pipe and within a few minutes the vehicle completely stopped. We got it towed to the same service station as before and called my insurance agent the next morning. The agent did some investigation and advised us to get it towed to another service station in Moorhead MN that works mostly on imports. This service station knew what the problem was as they had fixed five to six others in the last couple of months. They got the parts from the Motorwerks BMW dealership, fixed the problem and I got the vehicle back on 1/27/2011. They also mentioned that somebody had tried fixing the problem earlier but did not quite finish it. We are the original owners of it and have always taken it to Motorwerks BMW in Minneapolis for all work. The total without the two towing was $1028.

I have read that other BWM owners living in cold places with high humidity have had the same problem. I am scared to have any family member drive the vehicle. Have others had the same problem? Can it happen again? What should I do?

Umm that seem unusualy, though I am in the UK.

Welcome along too

Compression tested ?

Was the Cylinder head inspected?

Could even be a water pump issue, but unlikely...

It is definately engine related, Some clown before has not done a BMW check like it should be done... !!!