2016 BMW 3 Series
This year drew an ordinary 279 complaints for a BMW 3 Series — the model's median is 227. What they were about is the unusual part: 12.9% of them mention brake pedal, against 4.8% across the other years of this generation.
Generation 2 of the BMW 3 Series, which began in 2012 and ran to 2018. Everything below compares this year against the others in that generation, not against a different car wearing the same name.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 279 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 227 |
| Involving a crash | 36 |
| Involving a fire | 9 |
| Recalls | 0 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 5/5 |
| EPA combined | 26 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- brake pedal — 12.9% of this year's complaints, against 4.8% across the other years of this generation (2.7×). Owners wrote it as: brake pedal, slow, quickly, lease.
- situation — 10.8% of this year's complaints, against 4.2% across the other years of this generation (2.6×). Owners wrote it as: situation, hazardous, forward brake, brake stop.
- foot — 7.5% of this year's complaints, against 1.7% across the other years of this generation (4.6×). Owners wrote it as: foot, revving, traveling approximately.
Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.
What owners wrote
THIS HAPPENED TWO SEPARATE TIMES ABOUT 2 WEEKS APART.. THE CAR WAS STOPPED AT A STOPLIGHT. FOOT ON BRAKE. SUDDENLY ENGINE STARTED REVVING AND CAR LEAPED FORWARD. BRAKE DID NOT STOP IT. THE SECOND TIME, (AUGUST 31, 2020) THE CAR REARED-ENDED THE CAR IN FRONT, P…
WHILE DRIVING THE VEHICLE WHICH WAS IN MOTION, A NEW 2016 BMW 328 GT, THE BRAKES COMPLETELY FAILED, CAR COULD NOT BE STOPPED, EMERGENCY BRAKE PULLED WITH FULL PRESSURE ON BRAKE PEDAL, CAR EVENTUALLY SLOWED AND STOPPED BEFORE STRIKING OTHER VEHICLES IN ITS PATH…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
How this was worked out
Every year of the BMW 3 Series was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.
This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.
Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.
Own a 2016 BMW 3 Series? What happened to yours?
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