tonyb635

Yesterday when I went to pass an annoying left lane driver holding up traffic, my "Reduced Engine Power" warning light illuminated when I depressed the pedal. The bad thing is, the car actually had reduced power. I would say it felt like the turbos were no longer working or somewhere in the power loss of 20-30 %! About 20 minutes later I stopped for fuel and the car was off for ~ 10 minutes. Started car and light was out. I checked the information system and there was no indication. As I got on the hwy I depressed the pedal again to the floor and the problem returned. Light on and reduced power... I still had 100 mile to get home and the light remained on the entire time. The car sat about an hour and then I took it to the dealer to be checked. Again, when I started the car and drove off, no light. I drove pretty aggressive to the dealer and again no light and car felt normal! Does anyone know what this could be? I hate taking the car to our dealer! I am only thinking at the end of the day they will say, all is ok and we could not duplicate problem, bring it back if it returns... I had the light come on around six months ago and there was no power loss with that warning. The dealer replaced some electronic device and everything seemed ok. This time, I don't think they are related since I actually had a power loss.

narvselius

It's impossible to tell what it is; you need to get the error memory checked and that is best done by a dealer or a garage that has the same equipment and knowledge. Sorry, mate!

Allen

If I had to guess...I would say this is a fuel injector issue. The fault code is gonna have to be pulled to know for sure.

Gene

what year model e60 do you have? If it's a 535i/xi, most likely the hpfp...

jaycal3

Like it was said above, it could be anything. I am not familiar with the HPFP issue ( I have an '04 545i) but have read enough about it to know its certainly a possibility in certain models. It could also be that something got wet - trunk or ebox up front.

I wouldnt rule it out and say its unrelated to the last incident... it very well may be. My issue was an MPM... I got reduced power and a slew of other warnings... the MPM was changed out and the error went away. What I didnt know was that it was caused by plugged storm drains and it happened again but this time caused almost $7k worth of damage.

luigi524td

Did you, by chance, use BMW Assist to report the problem at the time it occured? I don't know for sure maybe that uploads some info to your dealership. At any rate, a more thorough diagnostic is in order.

One additional thing I've done in the past is to take pictures of the iDrive or instrument panel alerts -- I'm sure you have a cell phone with photo capability ... my dealer thought that was a very handy record of any problem I was experiencing.

Maybe a picture is worth 1000 words

tonyb635

Looks like the problem is fixed, so I am told. Actually out of the country at the moment, but they said it was ready. The repair was a vacuum line to the turbos, or a vacuum line that controls something with the turbos. Ok I see now how it could be anything like some of you mentioned when the reduced power light illuminates.