BMW Recalls 720,000+ Vehicles for Possible Engine Fire Defect

Owners of four-cylinder BMW cars made throughout most of the 2010’s need to know about this: On August 13, 2024, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration issued a huge recall of more than 720,000 units because of a potential engine fire risk. Below we look at key information in the recall, what BMW owners can do, and why this recall is worth taking seriously.

What Does the BMW Recall Say?

According to recall 24V-608 from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), it and BMW are looking into reports of faulty water pumps. The official language of the recall says:

This safety recall involves the water pump’s electrical plug connector. Blowby-liquid from the positive crankcase ventilation system may collect on the intake air hose. If this occurs, then this liquid could drip onto the plug connector. Over time, this could lead to fluid ingress into the plug and the possibility of a short circuit…This could increase the risk of a thermal event and, in rare cases, a fire.

In a nutshell: The water pump might drip onto its improperly-sealed power plug and start an electrical fire in the engine.

How Serious is the Problem?

As you might expect, your car catching on fire is very serious. Depending on where and when that happens, it has the potential to cause catastrophic damage to property and people. With that said, BMW says it received only 18 complaints about the issue and none included reports of accidents or injuries.

Despite BMW’s assurances, we should point out that a seemingly-related wrongful death lawsuit was recently filed in Georgia. It’s up to a jury to say whether a BMW engine fire was the most likely cause of that fatality, but the filing alone suggests an attorney strongly believes they can prove it.

How Many Units Does the Recall Affect?

The NHTSA estimates that 720,796 “potentially involved” vehicles were part of the production runs with the defective water pump. That number casts a wide net for safety, as the agency also says that roughly 1%—meaning around 7,207 vehicles—may actually have the defect.

Here are the specific models, production runs, and the unit counts mentioned in the recall:

If you’re unsure whether your vehicle is part of the recall and don’t want to wait for a letter about it, you can learn your car’s manufacture date from the sticker inside your driver door.

What Can I Do About the Recall?

People whose vehicles fall somewhere in the above list may wonder what to do about their potentially-faulty water pumps. According to BMW, a simple inspection and repair will fix what ails it:

The water pump, and the plug connector, will be inspected and, if necessary, replaced, and a shield will be installed to divert any fluid that might drop down onto the pump from the positive crankcase ventilation system’s intake air house.

Like most automakers, BMW recommends taking your car to a dealership for repairs. We know it can be annoying to lose your vehicle for a bit, but the inconvenience seems worth it to save the car—and yourself, and others—from a fire.

Why Should Consumers Care About This?

From a certain point of view, this recall is less reassuring than it might seem. BMW offers a free fix, yes, but the recall itself only exists because a faulty component made it into hundreds of thousands of vehicles in the first place. Owners must now be the final checkpoint—watching for notices, scheduling repairs, and assuming the risk until their visit to the dealership. In that sense, recalls often shift the burden of quality control from the manufacturer to the end user, even when the underlying problem was wholly out of the consumer’s hands.

In all fairness, recalls are still far more helpful than ignoring the problem or staying quiet about it. It’s just important to recognize what they really are: Responses to screw-ups that weren’t caught in time. The potential BMW fire hazard has especially high stakes, for example, and people may not take much comfort in knowing there’s only a *small* chance their car will burst into flames one day.

Seen this way, the recall we talked about today is a reminder that consumers bear some of the downstream costs of automotive failures—maybe not in dollars, but in time, inconvenience, and exposure to risk. Manufacturers often frame recalls as responsible behavior, but that would ideally begin long before a problem needs an urgent solution.