There are 2 owner-reported driver assist & adas complaints for the 2020 BMW X5in NHTSA's database. These are unverified consumer reports and may not reflect confirmed defects.
I was driving in the rain and I experienced an issue with a vehicle’s automatic safety systems that are designed to aid you from crashing and it would have been the proximate cause of my fatal accident had I not realized what was happening and stopped the system’s actions. The system kicked in when I touched the rumble strip with my front left tire but I brought it back before the system could because it detected the event and created a countering event to correct my mistake, hence begins the issue. When the car veered right it didn’t need to so I had to counter that movement to keep from hitting the car next to me. The car then detected this and created another event that I again corrected before the system could. This created a situation now where the systems working together were creating events to correct events it didn’t need to do because the systems when working together now had a response time to real world events slower than mine and it couldn’t stop itself from doing this solely due to a lack of processing power. In less than 2 seconds I went from driving straight to fighting a car that put me into a horizontal “death wobble” that would have caused my car to spin either clockwise or counterclockwise at some point had I panicked and slammed on the brakes, which is what most people would have done in this situation, but I knew better. I realized what was happening immediately and I stopped it by simply keeping the steering wheel centered straight ahead forcefully until the safety systems caught up and cleared all the events. I am giving you the short version because the system in the first 1-2 seconds made, created, and stacked at least 5 of these events as I fought to correct them until the vehicle’s body roll and “death wobble” stopped and I was able to drive straight again. The wet roadways and rain only made it worse. This is a huge problem and may cause so many fatal accidents that I can’t even imagine, as I a retired policer this
Backing out of my garage to a street with a 25 mph speed limit, the vehicle is supposed to alert the driver with a warning sound and or brake if a vehicle is crossing behind the vehicle. This feature has never worked and the dealer can't find any problem. This condition has been report on several internet websites with no resolution.
Complaints are unverified consumer reports submitted to NHTSA. A high complaint count may reflect vehicle popularity, not defect severity. Data sourced from NHTSA public records.
Data synced from NHTSA on Apr 26, 2026