2002 BMW 3 Series Electrical system Problems

“I opened the passenger door in the morning after the car had been parked overnight. I had a hockey bag with approximately 25 lbs of equipment sitting on the passenger seat which I removed from the car and closed the door. I forgot something and went back to the car, about 40 seconds later, and saw a cloud of white smoke at the ceiling and I opened the door. The car had a strong smell of burning plastic/electronics. Whatever was burning stopped and there was no visible flame. I checked all the electrical switches and all the equipment seemed to work fine and no fuses were blown. …”

“I have intermittent problems on hot days unlocking my car doors. My key button does not always open the door. I have to manually open the door. The real problem is when I'm inside the car, the unlock button does not work, even when I manually pull on the door handles from inside the car, the doors continues to be locked. This creates a very dangerous situation and a major safety hazard for all the passengers because the doors do not open. Once the car is cooler, they start to work again. I'm afraid that if I ever get into a car accident, nobody will be able to get out of the car. …”

“The red positive wire terminal overheated and potential fire hazard. The problem would kill the battery and car would not start. Shop said due to the location (the trunk) of the battery their was not enough ground. The shop fixed the problem by grounding the engine.”

“Using key fob to unlock doors, sometimes only driver door unlocks. Sometimes no doors unlock/lock. Interior master lock switch sometimes works sometimes does not. Replaced switch twice. Been in car and unable to unlock any doors to get out of vehicle using electric systems and even manual ie. Door handles. In a non stressful situation, got out by rolling down window and inserting key in driver door to unlock. For panic situations bought a window shatter tool to break windows to get out.”

“This is not as much a complaint as a request for help. Since march of 2013 I have replaced 5 throttle bodies and 3 gas pedal sensors, all oem parts. The problem that happened again today: driving at normal highway speed [55/60] the eml, traction control and brake warning lights all went on. Pulled over and turned off. Restarted, now service engine, eml, traction control and brake lights were on. Turned off, restarted, same lighting situation, very rough idle and car would not drive, as it was struggling for fuel. …”