Award Against BMW Sends Strong Signal

Think of a lemon and names like Yugo or Vega come to mind, dirt-cheap cars that were infamous for falling apart.

But what about BMW, the luxury German motor coach that is supposed to be an objet d’art. Could one of those actually be a L-E-M-O-N, or even worse, a record-breaking lemon ?

A California Superior Court jury awarded what is believed to be the largest “lemon law” award in history last month on a BMW--$174,000 in total damages.

The verdict included $82,000 assessed against the company to buy back the car, but it also imposed a civil penalty of $92,000, a staggering amount in the world of lemon lawsuits and obviously a potent message to the industry.

The award went to Pierre Forest, who has owned many luxury cars. Forest claimed his 1989 BMW 750il was a dud on the first morning he tried to light up the engine.

Forest walked out of his Beverly Hills home after the car was delivered to find the battery was dead, he claimed. The car was hauled away on a flatbed truck several days later. It was the first of many such occasions.

In all, Forest said he went through seven batteries in less than two years. The car’s electrical system obviously would not keep the batteries charged.

Private investigator Louis Nanos of Redondo Beach, who specializes in lemon cases, asserted in a report to Forest’s attorney that the car had a defective circuit that was draining the battery.

It was unpredictable. One time, the car died in the middle of the busy intersection at Robertson and Olympic boulevards. The tow truck that came to push it out of traffic accidently rammed it and left a dent, Nanos said.

Forest was left seething by his dealings with BMW.

“I have owned a lot of expensive cars and I have never had such shabby treatment,” Forest said.

He still does not accept their explanation of the problem.

“They told me that my using the car phone was causing my problem,” Forest said. “They told me that I live only nine-tenths of a mile from my store, that I wasn’t driving enough.”

In fact, David Cordero, BMW’s consumer affairs attorney, said in an interview that Forest was not driving the car a “reasonable” amount by the company’s standards.

Unless Forest drove more orused a battery charger, the battery might not have enough charge to start the car, Cordero said. But Forest wasn’t about to horse around with a battery charger.

He said he was too busy managing his business, a women’s boutique he owns with his wife in Beverly Hills.

“He only drove it for 5,000 miles over two years,” Cordero said. “Our position was that he was draining the battery through lack of use.” The idea was that the car’s computer memory and its clock would parasitically drain the battery over time.

Cordero said the average BMW is driven 10,000 to 15,000 miles a year. Asked how much a BMW must be driven to avoid dead batteries, Cordero said he “couldn’t give any specifics on that.”

Norman Taylor, Forest’s attorney, asserted that “nothing in BMW’s literature that came with the car said there was a minimum number of miles you have to drive to keep the car operating.”

BMW hopes that the Santa Barbara judge will cut the jury award. So far, the judge has not “entered the award,” leaving BMW and Forest to negotiate a settlement.

Cordero said BMW is prepared to pay the $82,000 for the car, but not the $92,000 penalty.

But money is not the issue, Forest said.

“I have a very profitable business. . . . I sued them out of spite.”