A mother-of-two has spoken of her desperate scramble to save her children from her BMW after it caught fire.
Sara Longley was travelling through Lincolnshire on the A1 with her husband Stuart, daughter Eleanor and son Adam when the car lost power and smoke began pouring through the air vents.
The 34-year-old stopped the 3-Series and frantically tried to rescue her children as flames began to emerge from the bonnet.
Just minutes later, the vehicle – now the subject of a worldwide safety recall – was engulfed in flames.
Sara told Lincolnshire Live: “My husband said he saw smoke coming out of the car so I just stopped, and we pulled out the kids.
“From losing power to the car being on fire, it was only two minutes.
“All that’s going through your head is you have to get the kids out.
“I tried to get Eleanor out but I couldn’t open the door because the child-lock was still on – that was a real moment of panic.
“Luckily my husband didn’t panic and he turned the ignition off and we got both the kids out.
“I saw the flames and we were very lucky – the wind was blowing the fire away from us.
“Adam didn’t really know what was going on, but it was scary for Eleanor to see the car in flames, the tyres were exploding so there were loud bangs as well.”
She added: “Who expects their car to spontaneously catch fire?”
Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue came to the aid of the Longleys and extinguished the blaze.
Sara said the family had received a recall letter for the vehicle before the incident, but said it didn’t say the issues were urgent or advise the family to stop using the car.
The family had booked the car in to do the required work in early April as that was the earliest the work could be carried out.
BMW began contacting drivers in October last year but the Longleys only received their safety recall letter on March 8 – a week before the car caught fire.
The fault causes flammable coolant to leak from the exhaust gas recirculation cooler on to the hot exhaust system near the engine.
The vehicles affected by the recall include petrol and diesel models of the 1 Series, 2 Series, 3 Series, 4 Series, 5 Series, 6 Series and 7 Series, as well as the X1, X3, X4, X5 and X6 SUVs.
BMW told Mail Online: “We were concerned to hear about what happened to Mr Longley and our customer service team has been in close contact.
“We have asked his insurer for permission to carry out a thorough investigation as soon as possible to determine the cause of the fire.”
The company says it has now contacted everyone affected by the recall and was reducing delays in tackling the issue.
It said if a driver suspects their car has the fault they should call BMW emergency services on 0800 777 109.
