It appears that the death of a police officer in 2020 set off quite a chain reaction.
Through its well-known Park Lane dealership in Mayfair, London, BMW has made the announcement that it will no longer provide vehicles to the British police. "Following a strategic change at BMW Group UK," the Park Lane dealership's International and Specialist Sales Division (ISSD), which handled bulk and special orders like police vehicles, will close.
BMW says that there is still a lot of demand for its cars, so in the future, it will put retail and business customers first. By abandoning this highly specialized business model, BMW will accomplish this. A police car, as you can imagine, requires significant upgrades; however, this may not be the only reason why BMW has axed this division.
Due to the passing of Police Constable (PC) Nicholas Dumphreys, the story of how BMW got to this point is both interesting and unfortunate. PC Dumphreys worked for the Cumbria Police. On January 26, 2020, he died in a BMW patrol car on the M6 highway. An inquest found that a defective crankshaft bearing broke loose, punctured the oil sump, and started a fire. LancsLive claims that BMW has been aware of the defect in the N57 diesel engine since 2014. Each month, between five and seven crankshaft bearing failures were reported. In 2016, BMW UK reported the issue to BMW Germany. Bimmer engineers began testing the vehicle and discovered that degraded engine oil and insufficient lubrication were to blame.
Following that, a service bulletin from BMW was distributed to the British police. The recommended engine oil was raised to 5W-30, and the interval between oil changes was reduced to 10,000 miles. In the United Kingdom, the information was distributed by means of the National Association of Police Fleet Managers. Since Cumbria Police is not believed to be a member of this organization, it was not informed of the update. The N57 diesel engine in question is a straight-six common-rail engine. It was used in the 3 Series, 5 Series, X5, and X6, among other models, with one, two, or three turbochargers.
It's important to note that the issue only affects police cars and not civilian ones. All that matters is how the cars were used. High mileage, prolonged periods of idling, and abrupt acceleration were the most common factors. They were a recipe for turbodiesel disaster when combined, but if you own a BMW X5 xDrive 35d from the previous generation, you need not be concerned.
The majority of the 330d, 530d, and X5 30d BMW police cars in the UK have either been retired or moved to a department where they are not subjected to the stress described above; however, officers have expressed dissatisfaction with the performance of their replacement vehicles. The UK police are also looking into whether it should go completely electric, but those are even more likely to catch fire out of nowhere.
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