This week started off so bland I nearly believed I’d run out of BMW gremlins to gripe about. But then, as if summoned by the very spirits of Bavarian engineering, Friday delivered a proper dose of the absurd.
Today, I bring you the most ludicrous case of modern motoring—one that had me questioning whether I was working on a machine or a mischievous prankster.
Ah, the BMW xDrive system. A marvel of modern engineering. A thing of beauty. A sophisticated, computer-controlled system designed to keep your Bavarian chariot glued to the road in all conditions. Except when it doesn’t.
Some people like to live on the edge. They go skydiving. They drive at 300 km/h on the Autobahn. And then there’s this guy—who decided that ignoring a thermostat fault for a year was a perfectly fine way to maintain a 2018 BMW 750i.
The owner of a stunning, Tanzanite Blue diesel rocket M340d rang me up in a state of distress. His car had decided that his key no longer existed. The message on the iDrive screen? “Vehicle key not found.”
This is a story of a gremlin so elusive, so cunning, that it haunted a lovely 2013 F10 525d for over a year.
