BMW's diesels kept catching fire in Korea — the government banned them from the roads

In the summer of 2018, BMWs were catching fire on South Korean roads at a rate of nearly one a week — almost 30 engine fires that year, concentrated in the 520d diesel sedan. The cause, BMW said, was a defect in the exhaust gas recirculation system. The fires became a national story, and then a reputational emergency for the brand: BMW Korea's chairman Kim Hyo-joon bowed in apology at a press conference.

BMW recalled 106,000 cars in South Korea — part of a global recall year that topped 300,000 vehicles — but the recall moved slower than the fires, and the government escalated. On 15 August 2018, the transport ministry announced it would ban roughly 20,000 BMWs that had not yet come in for safety checks: once owners received mayoral orders, the cars were to stay off the road until inspected. A government investigation into the cause ran in parallel.

The bill arrived in December: South Korea fined BMW 11.2 billion won (about $10 million) and referred the case to prosecutors, alleging the company had delayed the recall after knowing of the defect. The Korea case became the template for how a mid-size market disciplines a global manufacturer — not through the recall itself, which BMW controlled, but through the driving ban, the fine and the criminal referral, which it did not.