Too few owners filed complaints about the 2018 X3 in its first three years to say whether it is a better or a worse year than the others. Among the 3 X3 years with enough complaints to compare, owners filed the fewest about the 2022 (0.44 per 1,000 sold) and the most about the 2019 (0.76).
Safety complaints filed by owners in the first three years, per 1,000 sold.
too few complaints to rank against its other years
Counted from 18 complaints filed in the first three years, of 76 ever. 95% lower bound 0.19.
This year’s generation (2018–2024) drew 0.48 complaints per 1,000 sold taken together, against 0.50 for the 2011–2017 generation.
The model year carries far more information than the badge, so this is the comparison that matters. The bar is how many complaints each rate rests on.
| Model year | Per 1,000 | Complaints | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 0.17 | 3 | |
| 2009 | 0.17 | 2 | |
| 2010 | 0.16 | 1 | |
| 2011 | 0.54 | 15 | |
| 2012 | 0.29 | 9 | |
| 2013 | 0.61 | 20 | |
| 2014 | 0.37 | 12 | |
| 2015 | 0.46 | 15 | |
| 2016 | 0.60 | 23 | |
| 2017 | 0.57 | 24 | |
| 2018 | 0.35 | 18 | |
| 2019 | 0.76 | 50 | |
| 2020 | 0.32 | 21 | |
| 2021 | 0.50 | 34 | |
| 2022 | 0.44 | 31 |
No phrase appears often enough in these complaints to describe them reliably.
No clear early or late pattern.
The VIN an owner files names the engine, which places 75 of this year’s 76 complaints. Sales by engine are not published, so these are not rates and say nothing about which engine drew more complaints. What can be compared is what each engine’s owners reported.
| Engine | Complaints | About the engine or fuel system | Of those, before 30,000 miles |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2.0 L 4-cylinder | 49 | 24% | too few mileages |
| 3.0 L 6-cylinder | 26 | 31% | too few mileages |
Engines as NHTSA’s VIN decoder (vPIC) reads them from the first eleven characters of each VIN. “Turbo” is shown only where every VIN records one; the decoder leaves it blank on many turbo engines. 1 complaints are not in the table: no usable VIN, an engine vPIC could not decode, or an engine with fewer than 25 complaints.
That is not a clean bill of health, and not a criticism of the agency: investigations open for many reasons and complaint volume is only one of them.
Too few owners filed complaints about the 2018 X3 in its first three years to say whether it is a better or a worse year than the others. Among the 3 X3 years with enough complaints to compare, owners filed the fewest about the 2022 (0.44 per 1,000 sold) and the most about the 2019 (0.76). The typical year is the median across its model years.
The parts owners named most often in complaints filed to date: Electrical System (22), Engine (16), Unknown Or Other (12).
Complaint records cannot settle that on their own. They count safety problems owners chose to report to the federal government, not every repair. What they do show is how this year compares with the other X3 years: too few owners filed complaints about the 2018 X3 in its first three years to say whether it is a better or a worse year than the others.
Among years with enough complaints to compare, the 2022, at 0.44 per 1,000 sold. Every X3 year, ranked.
No guide we read covers the X3.
Example records behind this page, each on NHTSA’s own site: