Home · 2021 BMW 5 Series Hybrid Sedan Phev · Complaints
These are the actual owner complaints behind this car’s reliability verdict, filed with the federal government, unedited. They’re unverified reports, not confirmed defects: read them as leads for your pre-purchase inspection, not a diagnosis.
2 of 26 complaints match · Backup camera & sensors · clear filters
The system does not provide any warning for rear cross traffic, visual or audio. The dealership that sold the car concluded on two occasions that the system was not working, but later said they were unable to find faults or fixes.
NHTSA ODI 11595658
RCTA system does not work (other than on rare, unpredictable occasions, and generally only when the alert is worthless) - when another vehicle or pedestrian is too close to the car to make any difference. I have had cars with RCTA for years and none of them failed to detect objects/vehicles/people at much greater distances from my vehicle that could reasonably be expected to collide with my vehicle if I continued to back up. All these other cars provided an adequate advance warning of an impending danger (another car, bike, pedestrian, etc. approaching my vehicle with which I might collide, etc.) allowing the driver to react and avoid the problem. THIS PROBLEM OCCURRED REPEATEDLY STARTING IMMEDIATELY AFTER I TOOK POSSESSION OF THE CAR IN MARCH 2021. After repeated attempts to get BMW to fix the problem, I gave up. I will note the first serious occurrence of the issue below, but it has been repeated every time I use the car and pull out of a parking space in reverse. Probably 150 times? I can compensate for this failure somewhat, but it is vastly inferior to having a properly working RCTA. I have visited BMW dealerships on multiple occasions and each time asked that this issue be addressed. The car is reviewed, and I am told the system is working as designed. My response is that the car is therefore designed to be unsafe? However, on my latest visit for regular service (24 months since start of lease) I went to a different dealership, the service advisor told me that the problem was widespread in BMW 5 series sedans and SUVs. He indicated that there is no fix available at this time. It's been two years since I brought this to BMW's attention. Service Invoice that I am attaching is from March 3, 2022 - one of the trips to the dealership to get regular service where I asked again that this issue get addressed. See Item # 4 on pages 1 and 2.
NHTSA ODI 11515206
Working with the data? Download all 26 complaints as CSV · fetched from NHTSA July 19, 2026