Summary: Automatic Transmissions On Certain BMW 7 Series May Be Too Automatic

There seem to be certain circumstances, certain very specific circumstances that BMW knows about, certain unbelievably certain specific circumstances when BMW 7 Series sedan automatic transmissions go into Neutral instead of Park.

These circumstances are:

-           When the transmission is in Drive or Reverse and the engine is running, and the driver presses the start-stop ignition button two or three times “within a 0.3 second to 0.5 second interval”, the engine stops and the transmission moves to Neutral. Like I said, unbelievably specific.

-           When the driver selects Park with the gearshift stalk at the same time the stalk was moved up or down, the transmission shifts to Neutral or remains in Neutral if already there. This isn’t as specific as the first one, but it’s really confusing.

Unfortunately there have been 50 complaints from BMW Series 7 owners regarding rollaways that ARE NOT related to the BMW-known circumstances. The company has now intensified its investigation into the issue, extending it to 122,000 sedans from the 2002 to 2008 model years. This is termed a “more significant engineering analysis”, upgraded from a mere “preliminary investigation.”

These models’ transmissions all may slide into Neutral when the driver intended the car to be in Park; a situation that can have some particularly awful consequences, and one that BMW is keeping a close eye on.

And, yes, this potential recall summons audible memories of the Grateful Dead’s Franklin Tower chorus, with Jerry Garcia singing “Roll away the dew.”

Love that tune.

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