2005 BMW 3 Series problems
The 2005 BMW 3 Series has 29 complaints on file with NHTSA. The largest share (55%) concerns air bags. Next are lighting (14%) and electrical system (7%).
At a glance
- Complaints
- 29 filed with NHTSA
- Most reported
- Air bags 55% of complaints
- Crashes and fires
- 3 and 3
- Injuries and deaths
- 7 and 0
- Typical mileage
- 75,000 miles 17 complaints with mileage
Source: NHTSA owner complaints
Where the complaints are
Share of this model year's complaints by the part of the car involved. One complaint can name more than one part, so the shares can add up to more than 100%.
When problems show up
View the numbers
| Mileage | Complaints |
|---|---|
| 0k to 20k miles | 0 |
| 20k to 40k miles | 2 |
| 40k to 60k miles | 3 |
| 60k to 80k miles | 4 |
| 80k to 100k miles | 1 |
| 100k to 120k miles | 2 |
| 120k to 140k miles | 2 |
| 140k to 160k miles | 3 |
| 160k to 180k miles | 0 |
| 180k to 200k miles | 0 |
| 200k+ miles | 0 |
What the data shows
Of the 17 complaints that include odometer readings, half describe a problem before roughly 75,000 miles.
Safety-related details: 3 complaints mention a crash; 3 complaints mention a fire; 7 injuries reported. Its complaints are more severe on average than those of 94% of model years in our database.
Looking only at complaints filed within five years of the model year (so older and newer years are comparable), the 2005 ranks 12th most-complained-about out of 12 model years of the BMW 3 Series with enough data (3 complaints in that window).
What owners wrote
A few complaints as filed, shortened and with personal details removed. The first ones are among the most serious reports for this model year; the rest are typical.
I was driving northbound on sepulveda blvd in los angeles on july 29th,2013 around 10:00 pm with my brother, suddenly the passenger side airbag deployed for no reason and bruised my brother's right arm my car stopped operating and we called payless tow to tow my vehicle to rusnak BMW in westlake village were I purchased the vehicle from. I talked to the service dept in regards to my car airbag incident, they told me that the warranty was expired and I have to pay out of pocket.
2005 BMW 320I . Tail light indicator warning came on. Turns out the wire was melted around the metal where the wire plugs into tail light!! Very expensive to fix!
Rear view mirror leak onto the tan color console of the car. This is due to the manufactures malfunction rear view mirrors placed in most models. The liquid leak is the make up of the dimmer in order to work. Because the liquid spilled out, the dimmer no longer works and I have a black stained on my tan color consoled that does not removed and a very expensive mirror that does not work properly as expected by manufacture.
Side mirrors fading into a brown color. Making the visibility through them impossible. Many times I have almost side swiped cars that are on the side of me due to my not being able to see our of my side mirrors. Also front light keeps going out. I have changed it 3 times in two months and it keeps either going out or falling out of the hole making the indicator light come on.