Poor guy. Buys a 2000 540 Bimmer and while he’s driving home, it catches on fire. Some sort of thermostat failure. At first, he was screwed. Commerce, his insurance company, wouldn’t pay for it because they say they don’t cover mechanical failure, and there was no flame. “No flame, no claim,” was their clever explanation. BMW said there were no recalls or faulty parts for that model and so they weren’t going to do anything either. Then the BMW owner posted his complaints on an online message board, got a lawyer, and filed a complaint with the State Insurance Commission. All of a sudden, magically BMW now sends out an engineer to the guy’s house and found that yes, the car had failed. BMW offered him enough of a settlement that he no longer feels queasy about buying BMMs in the future. Ah, the power of putting your dukes up.

540 Caught Fire [BimmerFest] (Thanks to Ziemowit!)
(Photo: Getty)

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