Power reduced error - how common is it and will it come back?

[charltones]

I got the following error messages yesterday, accompanied by the 'turtle' icon and warning:

• Power Reduced (Front Motor temporarily disabled)
• Power reduced (Exiting and re-entering vehicle may restore operation)

This is a 1 month old 2021 M3 LR. I'd made a couple of short (15 minute) journeys, stopped at Sainsbury's car park for about 20 minutes then got in the car and saw the error. No previous warning. My wife was in the passenger seat, I got out and got back in again and the error cleared. I've read a few threads on this error - a lot seemed to relate to water ingress affecting a wiring loom in earlier revisions of the M3, some to do with accelerator pedal wiring connector. I'm curious how many other people have had this: if this a one-off blip, or if it is something I should be concerned about? I put a service request in asking if they could remotely diagnose what happened. What has been your experience? Also curious if any 2021 cars have had this.

 

[Morhydro]

Just had this for the first time after 33,000 miles in my 2020 M3LR. Will monitor.

 

[Jason71]

I put down once but technically it was twice. Boxing Day 2020 and a couple of days later. Both times exiting and re-entering fixed it.
Service centre said. known issue that will be fixed by a future software update. Which I took to mean hardware issue that will be masked by a future software update. Either way has not happened again in over a year. I had had the car over a year when it happened. 2019 M3LR. I had washed the car on Christmas eve but not driven it since so I figured it could be water ingress from over aggressive pressure washing. My harness has been checked for the known ingress issue on the early 2019 and they said it was fine

 

[Morhydro]

So I had this on the way home yesterday. Then went out later to Abington (about 60 miles each way) and initially the car was OK but soon limited the speed to 55mph which was painful. That persisted all the way to Abington. I arrived with 90 miles on the range-o-meter so did not need to charge. However plugged into the Super Charger there and charged up to 240 mile range. Then the car was OK all the way home. Wondering if this is a software issue to do with range? Although on the first instance I had 170 miles range left.

 

[charltones]

After it happened I booked a service request as a precaution and asked them to remotely diagnose. They responded that the remote diagnosis suggests they need to take a look and leave the car with them. They can't say how long it would take. So I'm currently due to drop it off at the end of this month for them to tinker with.

 

[Herman1976]

After it happened I booked a service request as a precaution and asked them to remotely diagnose. They responded that the remote diagnosis suggests they need to take a look and leave the car with them. They can't say how long it would take. So I'm currently due to drop it off at the end of this month for them to tinker with.

What did they eventyally do? Is it fixed now?

 

[Morhydro]

In my case it turned out that a gasket in the 5 way coolant bottle had come loose and blocked the flow. Once fixed the car was perfect.

 

[charltones]

What did they eventyally do? Is it fixed now?

I cancelled the service request assuming the error wouldn't return, which it hasn't.

 

[Peteski]

I cancelled the service request assuming the error wouldn't return, which it hasn't.

Brave call. Personally I would get it checked over. I don't think it's a simple software bug otherwise it would happen to nearly everyone at some point.