A Harrogate woman has sent a warning to other BMW drivers in the area after another instance of a car catching on fire.

Your Harrogate reported that a BMW caught alight on the A1(M) last week due to what is believed to be an engine fault.

And Harrogate resident Laura Brearley has recalled her own experience of her BMW 5 Series catching alight in March – an incident that left her and her children traumatised.

Laura, alongside her husband Ben and two small children, were travelling on the motorway when a warning flashed up on the dashboard.

She told Your Harrogate:

“The car began to lose some power so we pulled into the slow lane and decided to get off at the next junction ahead.

“As we did, the car began to lose even more power and we saw smoke coming from the bonnet.

“We immediately pulled over onto the hard shoulder and quickly got the children out of the car and ran along the hard shoulder to safety.

“There was more and more smoke coming from the car and then it actually set on fire!”

The fire saw some of Laura’s car ‘melted’ by extreme heat.

The family called the fire service who arrived with the police to shut the road whilst they dealt with the car.

Laura said the front of the vehicle had “melted” from the extreme heat.

She said:

“As you can imagine, it was really traumatic. We have all been affected by it massively, especially the children who kept asking questions about it, trying to understand why it happened.

“We barely slept on the night that it happened. Our son was too scared to go to sleep and we held him until he did.

“Both children woke separately in the middle of the night and came to sleep in our bed, which they never do.

“As parents, we can’t help but to think what may have happened if we hadn’t have got the children out of the car so quickly. It is terrifying.”

BMW have since conducted an investigation into the family’s car fire and concluded that a “product related defect” was the cause.

A similar incident occurred last week when fire crews were called to a vehicle fire on the A1 near Boroughbridge:

 

Earlier this year, BMW recalled more than 917,000 cars and SUVs in the US to fix a problem that can cause engine compartment fires.

268,000 BMW vehicles were also recalled in the UK in 2018. It’s thought a further 250,000 cars could be affected.

Laura said:

“If you think your car could be affected please, please, please do some research and get it checked out.

“We really don’t want what happened to us to happen to anyone else.”

If you think your vehicle may need to be recalled, visit the gov.uk website or a recall check specifically for BMW here.

Read more local stories from Your Harrogate here.