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The general description is as follows:

Drive approx 20-30miles and the oil light comes on.
Continue and the SatNav tells you to stop you've not enough oil put some in now!

So you stop and the oil level is fine.

You start the car and all is well so you drive off and soon enough the same problem occurs.

At first the dealer weren't confident there was an issue. However once they rigged up their test computer and took it on a longer (20+ mile) test drive they confirmed something was amiss.

Since then the car has been 'fixed' 4+ times. Each time the problem recurs.
It's a consistant repeatable problem that has caused BMW to replace sensors and the battery so far. Now they suspect a software fault but are waiting for feedback from Germany.

Key here is that the car is claiming an issue that cannot be identified. You could suggest just ignore the warnings but if the car is right then it'll lead to one very dead engine. Even if it didn't it's still a failure that makes my parents fearful to drive the car so while it's under warranty it needs to be fixed.

In all fairness to the dealership, while they did seem initially reluctant to help, they are now doing enough to keep my mother reasonably appeased - a task most Dragon slayers wouldn't relish.

As I said before they love the car but their confidence is badly damaged. If it is a software fault it'll have to go anyway because they know just how computer dependant the car is.


Two quick take-aways from this -

Early on they were asked to stop driving the car over short distances and only use it on longer ones to prevent it damaging the battery.
To which they replied they'd bought a car to go from a to b. Nowhere in the specification does it say "don't use for short journeys" or they wouldn't have bought it in the first place. As it is they drive mixed journeys like most other people.

Secondly the salesman suggested they'd had the car 3 years (29k miles) so only one big problem was pretty good.....
Mum said she bought cars for 10 years+, not for 3 and expected them to only ever suffer wear and tear issues.
I burst out laughing and reminded her my 11 year old Civic has covered 120k miles, is driven hard most of the time, and has only ever had wear and tear failures!