diff --git a/src/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/Crawler.php b/src/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/Crawler.php
index 37822e53c2a0..a1ddffd797a1 100644
--- a/src/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/Crawler.php
+++ b/src/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/Crawler.php
@@ -856,13 +856,12 @@ private function relativize($xpath)
     {
         $expressions = array();
 
-        $unionPattern = '/\|(?![^\[]*\])/';
         // An expression which will never match to replace expressions which cannot match in the crawler
         // We cannot simply drop
         $nonMatchingExpression = 'a[name() = "b"]';
 
         // Split any unions into individual expressions.
-        foreach (preg_split($unionPattern, $xpath) as $expression) {
+        foreach ($this->splitUnionParts($xpath) as $expression) {
             $expression = trim($expression);
             $parenthesis = '';
 
@@ -912,6 +911,47 @@ private function relativize($xpath)
         return implode(' | ', $expressions);
     }
 
+    /**
+     * Splits the XPath into parts that are separated by the union operator.
+     *
+     * @param string $xpath
+     *
+     * @return string[]
+     */
+    private function splitUnionParts($xpath)
+    {
+        // Split any unions into individual expressions. We need to iterate
+        // through the string to correctly parse opening/closing quotes and
+        // braces which is not possible with regular expressions.
+        $unionParts = array();
+        $inSingleQuotedString = false;
+        $inDoubleQuotedString = false;
+        $openedBrackets = 0;
+        $lastUnion = 0;
+        $xpathLength = strlen($xpath);
+        for ($i = 0; $i < $xpathLength; ++$i) {
+            $char = $xpath[$i];
+
+            if ($char === "'" && !$inDoubleQuotedString) {
+                $inSingleQuotedString = !$inSingleQuotedString;
+            } elseif ($char === '"' && !$inSingleQuotedString) {
+                $inDoubleQuotedString = !$inDoubleQuotedString;
+            } elseif (!$inSingleQuotedString && !$inDoubleQuotedString) {
+                if ($char === '[') {
+                    ++$openedBrackets;
+                } elseif ($char === ']') {
+                    --$openedBrackets;
+                } elseif ($char === '|' && $openedBrackets === 0) {
+                    $unionParts[] = substr($xpath, $lastUnion, $i - $lastUnion);
+                    $lastUnion = $i + 1;
+                }
+            }
+        }
+        $unionParts[] = substr($xpath, $lastUnion);
+
+        return $unionParts;
+    }
+
     /**
      * @param int $position
      *
diff --git a/src/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/Tests/CrawlerTest.php b/src/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/Tests/CrawlerTest.php
index 45bbb2f8e599..65e2a90e8751 100755
--- a/src/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/Tests/CrawlerTest.php
+++ b/src/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/Tests/CrawlerTest.php
@@ -387,6 +387,7 @@ public function testFilterXpathComplexQueries()
         $this->assertCount(5, $crawler->filterXPath('(//a | //div)//img'));
         $this->assertCount(7, $crawler->filterXPath('((//a | //div)//img | //ul)'));
         $this->assertCount(7, $crawler->filterXPath('( ( //a | //div )//img | //ul )'));
+        $this->assertCount(1, $crawler->filterXPath("//a[./@href][((./@id = 'Klausi|Claudiu' or normalize-space(string(.)) = 'Klausi|Claudiu' or ./@title = 'Klausi|Claudiu' or ./@rel = 'Klausi|Claudiu') or .//img[./@alt = 'Klausi|Claudiu'])]"));
     }
 
     public function testFilterXPath()
@@ -548,7 +549,7 @@ public function testFilterXPathWithSelfAxes()
 
         $this->assertCount(0, $crawler->filterXPath('self::a'), 'The fake root node has no "real" element name');
         $this->assertCount(0, $crawler->filterXPath('self::a/img'), 'The fake root node has no "real" element name');
-        $this->assertCount(9, $crawler->filterXPath('self::*/a'));
+        $this->assertCount(10, $crawler->filterXPath('self::*/a'));
     }
 
     public function testFilter()
@@ -969,6 +970,8 @@ public function createTestCrawler($uri = null)
 
                     <a href="?get=param">GetLink</a>
 
+                    <a href="/example">Klausi|Claudiu</a>
+
                     <form action="foo" id="FooFormId">
                         <input type="text" value="TextValue" name="TextName" />
                         <input type="submit" value="FooValue" name="FooName" id="FooId" />