BMW has announced that it will stop supplying cars to the UK police force via its famous Park Lane dealership in Mayfair, London. The Park Lane dealership's International & Specialist Sales Division (ISSD), which handled bulk and special orders like police vehicles, will be closing "following a strategic change at BMW Group UK."
According to BMW, high demand for its cars continues to outstrip supply, and it will therefore be prioritizing retail and corporate customers in the future. BMW will do so while moving away from this highly specialized business model. As you can imagine, a police car requires substantial upgrades, but this may not be the only factor behind why BMW has axed this particular division.
The story of how BMW got to this point is quite interesting, albeit also unfortunate, because of the death of Police Constable (PC) Nicholas Dumphreys. PC Dumphreys was employed by the Cumbria Police and died in a BMW patrol car on the M6 highway on January 26, 2020.
An inquest into the accident found that a faulty crankshaft bearing broke loose, punctured the oil sump, and caused a fire. According to a local UK website LancsLive, BMW had known about the N57 diesel engine flaw since 2014. Roughly five to seven crankshaft bearing failures were reported per month. In 2016, BMW UK reported the problem to BMW Germany, and Bimmer's engineers started conducting tests and found the cause to be insufficient lubrication and degraded engine oil.
BMW then sent out a service bulletin specifically for the UK police. The recommended engine oil was upgraded to 5W30, and the oil change interval was dropped to 10,000 miles. The information was passed through the National Association of Police Fleet Managers in the UK. Cumbria Police is reportedly not a member of this association, which is why it never received the update.
The engine in question is the N57, a straight-six common rail diesel. It was available with one, two, or three turbochargers and was used in the 3 Series, 5 Series, X5, and X6, to name just a few.
It's worth mentioning that the problem is only relevant to police cars and not civilian vehicles. It comes down to how the cars were used. The common factors were high-mileage, long periods of idling, and sudden acceleration. Combined, they were a recipe for turbodiesel disaster, but you don't have to worry if you own a previous-generation BMW X5 xDrive 35d.
Most of the UK's BMW police cars (330d, 530d, and X5 30d) have either been retired or placed in a department where the vehicles are not subjected to the kind of stress mentioned above, but officers have complained of inadequate performance from their replacement vehicles. The UK police force is also investigating whether it should go fully electric, but those can be even more notorious for unexpected fires.