Help! Transmission Fault, gear won't engage

[AVI-8]

If this were my car I'd be much happier with it being taken to a specialist transmission company than a BMW dealer, firstly ... They specialise in transmissions, and if the worst came to the worst, you'll get a reconditioned gearbox with a warranty for probably around 50% of what BMW want just for the mechatronics ... Good luck

[Ash1971]

Well believe it or not I'm still without X5 - the mechatronics unit starved the gearbox of oil and so the gearbox self-destructed. So had BMW followed their computer and simply replaced the mechatronics unit they would not have discovered the problem. I'd have spent £3600 for nothing. Thank you Specialists.

A new gearbox is therefore on order from ZF. They've never had this problem before so there are no 8-speed auto boxes lying around on shelves - it has to come from Germany. This will all unfortunately cost me and my family our skiing holiday and with no assistance whatsoever from BMW GB. It's the kind of thing that makes you suddenly sit up and question your brand loyalty.

On a more positive note the garage have given me a 2005 Ford Focus 1.2 LX with 170,000 miles on it as a loan car. It has wheels, so at least I am mobile.

[X5Sport]

BMW GB walked away from me too when mine failed on my E53 in 2008.  I was very unimpressed!

BMW Dealers are just not trained up on these transmissions because they are only allowed to replace and not repair them.  Because of this they just read the computer error and it says 'replace component a,b,c etc'.

Richard