# Engine power reduced



## Rivergoer (Mar 30, 2017)

Dieselcruze760 said:


> Good morning everyone I was wondering if any of you have experienced this yet. My wife was driving to work and she got the reduced engine power warning and the power reduced and she had to try and get out of the fast lane and off the freeway. The car was bought brand new with 6 miles on it, and it now has 2200 miles. It's a 2018 cruze diesel lt with a automatic. Has anyone had this issue? Were waiting for road side assistance to tow it to the dealer.


How’s the DEF level?


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## Dieselcruze760 (Jul 18, 2018)

It says ok still. It's so weird when you start it it says "engine power is reduced" that in it flashes "cleaning exhaust filter must continue driving" but it won't go over 40 miles per hour.


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## Rivergoer (Mar 30, 2017)

Sounds like your pre-regen process has been interrupted too many times. Does your wife do a lot of short commutes?

Most likely the dealership will need to do a ‘forced regen’ to reset the emissions system.

Diesels don’t play well in city environments, driving in traffic and short, stop n go commuting. The emissions components thrive on periodic non-stop Highway operation where elevated EGTs help clean out the soot and facilitate complete regen cycles.


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## MP81 (Jul 20, 2015)

It sounds like it's allowing it to finish the regen, though. Might speed limit if the DPF is too clogged up.

With your low mileage, this will be covered under warranty - let the dealer deal with it.


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## firehawk618 (Feb 24, 2013)

2018 Hatch auto here also. Haven't had any issue like you describe however the vast majority of the miles are on the highway for 20+ minutes at a time.

IF too many short trips are causing this that's no valid excuse. If it's the case GM has failed. The DIC should say initiating regen leave car running until complete or some sort of message like that vs going into limp mode.

If these instances start piling up I smell a class action lawsuit in the future..........

That being said. I find it odd that some 2018 Diesels will say OK on the def level yet others will say the percentage.

The percentage is an estimate because there's no true 0 to 100% sending unit in the DEF tank. Only 3 level switches. I haven't had one in my hand yet but judging from the schematics it's ~75%, ~50% and ~25%.

What's interesting is that my car. Used to show percentage of DEF. I retrofitted express up windows *never available on diesels SHAME ON YOU GM* and after doing some hack flashing to the BCM now my def level just shows OK like others. Strange.

That's it.


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## Dieselcruze760 (Jul 18, 2018)

That's what's weird to me. I'm no newbie to diesels. I've had 2 lly duramaxs and now I have a 2016 ram 3500 and just had my first active regen at 18k miles. This car has seen almost all highway miles. I'm my ram I have a actual def gauge. The cruze is the same as my father in laws Denali. It does not show a percentage until it is below 20 percent. At least that's how his is. Its currently at the dealership and were waiting to hear back on what's wrong.


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## Dieselcruze760 (Jul 18, 2018)

So dealer said it's because I put hid head lights in the car. And I have to pay 300 bucks to have to dpf cleaned. What a crock of crap. I have his head lights and a drop in kn air filter.


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## Dieselcruze760 (Jul 18, 2018)

Called and talked to them. They can see every single time a sensor is unplugged. He basically said that the computer froze when I did the lights. I didn't unhook the battery in the trunk when I'm did the lights, I just pulled out all the lights and installed the hid, and then hooked them into the power. So did I mess up by not disconnecting the battery before installing the lights. I just don't understand how lights could affect the emissions system.


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## MP81 (Jul 20, 2015)

Dieselcruze760 said:


> So did I mess up by not disconnecting the battery before installing the lights. I just don't understand how lights could affect the emissions system.


Not even remotely. These are unrelated. You might want to remind them that the Magnuson-Moss warranty act prevents them from doing exactly what they're trying to.

Or, better yet, find yourself a new dealer, this one sounds like shade-central.


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## Dieselcruze760 (Jul 18, 2018)

Thank you MP81 I fell like they are trying to take me for a idiot. There is no way in **** that dpf should be full at 2200 miles. I'm wondering if there is a issue with the def sensor, and if they even filled it from when we bought it. They are suppose to be running a manual regen tomorrow and I will be having a talk with them when I get down there tomorrow. They said there were 3 check engine lights. I will report back once I know more.


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## Snipesy (Dec 7, 2015)

Ah yes. I see it now.

WARRANTY VOID: CUSTOMER REPLACED HEADLIGHT


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## IndyDiesel (May 24, 2015)

This one is a first, replace a headlight and emissions problems. Some dealers just do not think this stuff thru before responding. I suspect they don’t like seeing mods on a new car.


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## Taxman (Aug 10, 2017)

With the first gen, and apparently the second generation too, if you turn the car off at the wrong time as the DPF regen is starting, the system locks up and won't ever finish the regen. Then it has to be manually regenerated. They either need to rewrite the regen program, or at least put up a message 'don't turn the car off yet'. 

When I first saw "it's under warranty, let the dealer take care of it", I thought "DPF regen _should _be under warranty, but GM won't pay for it".

In hindsight, the answer here was to get something like biscan and run a manual regen when you get reduced power and DPF full.


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## HondaTech2016 (Apr 20, 2017)

This is why I can't wait for a delete for our cars.


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## Snipesy (Dec 7, 2015)

IndyDiesel said:


> This one is a first, replace a headlight and emissions problems. Some dealers just do not think this stuff thru before responding. I suspect they don’t like seeing mods on a new car.


I hate talking to techs... I really do. They are some of the most stubborn people I know. Techs are never wrong even when they are. Alot of it is from the crap environment, but it still doesn't make it right. 

Add incentives to do out of warranty work to the mix and we have the situation here today.



With GM I can honestly see unplugging headlights and such messing with the vehicle. Because GM. I kind of doubt that's the case here, but who knows.


One thing I do know though, is the tech has no flippin idea.


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## Dieselcruze760 (Jul 18, 2018)

So I have a question, does 2nd gen diesel say anything about when it’s going to start a regen? Did my wife not see something? I’m trying to arm my self when we go in today, but sounds like either way I’ll have to pay for the manual regen.


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## IndyDiesel (May 24, 2015)

Dieselcruze760 said:


> So I have a question, does 2nd gen diesel say anything about when it’s going to start a regen? Did my wife not see something? I’m trying to arm my self when we go in today, but sounds like either way I’ll have to pay for the manual regen.


Gen 1 and gen 2 do NOT notify you a regen is about to happen or is happening. Many of gen 1 folks, myself included have a scanguage aftermarket device that is programmed specifically for the gen 1 CTD that tells us when it is happening and evening about ready to happen if monitoring closely. It’s not a perfect system. From my understanding the risk is it’s going into pre regen and dumping fuel into DPF and you shut car off prior to regen beginning and then the computer gets confused and thinks there is a lot of soot and it shuts down or reduces power. It’s one of the most least attractive attributes of our CTD in my view.


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## Taxman (Aug 10, 2017)

Dieselcruze760 said:


> So I have a question, does 2nd gen diesel say anything about when it’s going to start a regen?


Not in USA. 
Only in countries where GM assumes the drivers aren't idiots.


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## Dieselcruze760 (Jul 18, 2018)

So is there a scan gauge for the 2nd gen yet? I just don’t want this to become a issue every 2000 miles. Thank you guys for all the reply’s as well. I guess there’s not much I can tell the dealer.


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## Dieselcruze760 (Jul 18, 2018)

So is it the scan gauge 2 and then you program it to read the dpf and regen?


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## Taxman (Aug 10, 2017)

You should be able to program Xgauges into Scanguage to display the DPF and regen status. 
I'm not sure if @*Snipesy*'s BiScan for android works with the 1.6L.

But what happened is a straight up warranty issue. In normal driving (your wife parked the car) the car suffered a failure while under warranty. The cure to the failure is to plug in a computer and push a button to initiate a regeneration of the DPF. For that, they charge you $300 and pretend it's your fault. You can find stories like this all over the first gen diesel subforum. 

It's a random event. Just imagine that out of every ten hours, there are one or two minutes during which you can disable the car by turning it off, and without aftermarket computer readouts (and training yourself to look at the display every time you turn it off) you have no way of knowing when it's unsafe to turn the car off. 

If your car has 2000 miles on it, it's already regenerated successfully a few times. Many drivers go 100,000 miles without it ever happening. You just had the bad luck to have it happen far sooner than most.


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## Snipesy (Dec 7, 2015)

I don't know. Its probably the same as the LWN. Probably.


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## MP81 (Jul 20, 2015)

Snipesy said:


> I don't know. Its probably the same as the LWN. Probably.


I swore it said 1.6L TD the last time I opened it.


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## Snipesy (Dec 7, 2015)

MP81 said:


> I swore it said 1.6L TD the last time I opened it.


Yeah but it doesn't have much in it. And what is in there all overlaps with the LWN.


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## Dieselcruze760 (Jul 18, 2018)

Ok here's what chevy found. I think its bs, or our cars are really sensitive to a sensor being unplugged.


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## Snipesy (Dec 7, 2015)

Dieselcruze760 said:


> Ok here's what chevy found. I think its bs, or our cars are really sensitive to a sensor being unplugged.


Did you unplug the sensor?

Yes Chevy has had a bug in their ECMs for the past 5 years that prevents things from working if a sensor is disconnected and connected again later. Without powering down the module it just simply freaks out.

It's an issue with their software. You causing it doesn't shift the blame to you, so it's covered by warranty.

Now have fun fighting that.


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## Dieselcruze760 (Jul 18, 2018)

Snipesy said:


> Did you unplug the sensor?
> 
> Yes Chevy has had a bug in their ECMs for the past 5 years that prevents things from working if a sensor is disconnected and connected again later. Without powering down the module it just simply freaks out.
> 
> ...


Yes @Snipesy I unplugged the plug on top of the intake to change out the air filter to a k&n. I had no clue this would cause a issue I probably unplugged it 3 or 4 times. How would you power down the module? I'm going to get a scangauge 2 this next week to help monitor what th s going on.


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## Snipesy (Dec 7, 2015)

Dieselcruze760 said:


> Yes @Snipesy I unplugged the plug on top of the intake to change out the air filter to a k&n. I had no clue this would cause a issue I probably unplugged it 3 or 4 times. How would you power down the module? I'm going to get a scangauge 2 this next week to help monitor what th s going on.


Unplug the battery. Or if you want to be cheeky you can unplug the module itself.

Yeah. It's dumb.


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## Dieselcruze760 (Jul 18, 2018)

Snipesy said:


> Unplug the battery. Or if you want to be cheeky you can unplug the module itself.
> 
> Yeah. It's dumb.


Awesome thank you for your input @snipes. I guess I live and learn. If I was to disconnect the battery I do it from in the trunk right? And do I take off both the positive and negative?


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## Snipesy (Dec 7, 2015)

Dieselcruze760 said:


> Awesome thank you for your input @snipes. I guess I live and learn. If I was to disconnect the battery I do it from in the trunk right? And do I take off both the positive and negative?


Just negative. It's much safer to remove negative first. Always. These days the positive is locked behind a bolt or something anyway.

After that just wait a few minutes for the capacitors and switches and such. Then you are good to go.


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## Dieselcruze760 (Jul 18, 2018)

Snipesy said:


> Just negative. It's much safer to remove negative first. Always. These days the positive is locked behind a bolt or something anyway.
> 
> After that just wait a few minutes for the capacitors and switches and such. Then you are good to go.


Ok thank you so much for the insight.


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## RunninWild (Sep 14, 2017)

on the reduced power side of things has anyone noticed inconsistent power from the motor? Sometimes my car feels really peppy and has tons of pull and other times it feels like its gutless. I don't have any cel or reduced power notifications and no I don't have the ac on... I don't know if im just used to driving it but I remember it pulling quite a bit more in the past.


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## johnmo (Mar 2, 2017)

RunninWild said:


> Sometimes my car feels really peppy and has tons of pull and other times it feels like its gutless. I don't have any cel or reduced power notifications and no I don't have the ac on... I don't know if im just used to driving it but I remember it pulling quite a bit more in the past.


Sometimes mine feels extra zippy, but I think it's just me hitting the turbo just right. I think it has a very noticeable turbo lag.


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## Dieselcruze760 (Jul 18, 2018)

Ok guys round 2, 200 miles later I got the engine power reduced and a check engine light again. It's back at the dealer again but the original one we bought it from. This is some bs I hope they find out what's wrong this time.


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## Dieselcruze760 (Jul 18, 2018)

Ok got the car back this time it was 2 codes P244a and P2463. They performed a low chart diagnostic and circuit test and found the pressure differential sensor for the dpf was not operating within the factory specs so we will wait and see. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.


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## Jellyfrosh (Aug 30, 2018)

It sounds like the DPF got clogged. Was the car idled a lot or driven on short trips?


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## Dieselcruze760 (Jul 18, 2018)

Jellyfrosh the DPF was plugged. It was due to the pressure differential sensor was out factory specs. The car is 95 percent driven on the freeway.


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## Taxman (Aug 10, 2017)

Dieselcruze760 said:


> Jellyfrosh the DPF was plugged. It was due to the pressure differential sensor was out factory specs. The car is 95 percent driven on the freeway.


And before this was properly diagnosed, did you get charged for a forced regen?
Any hope of getting that refunded?


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## Dieselcruze760 (Jul 18, 2018)

Taxman said:


> And before this was properly diagnosed, did you get charged for a forced regen?
> Any hope of getting that refunded?


Taxman I did get charged from the first dealer that did not fix it. They charged me 330 to due a manual regen, to only have it happen again 200 miles later. I think all they did the first time was hook there scan tool up and pull the codes, then they tried to blame the fact that I put HID bulbs in the car is why it didn't regen. Then when it happened again I took it to where I bought it from and they fixed it. I'm going to talk to the first Chevy dealership service manager tomorrow to try and get my money back because they did not fix the problem and the other Chevy dealer replaced the sensor and did a manual regen under warranty.


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## MP81 (Jul 20, 2015)

Dieselcruze760 said:


> Taxman I did get charged from the first dealer that did not fix it. They charged me 330 to due a manual regen, to only have it happen again 200 miles later. I think all they did the first time was hook there scan tool up and pull the codes, then they tried to blame the fact that I put HID bulbs in the car is why it didn't regen. Then when it happened again I took it to where I bought it from and they fixed it. I'm going to talk to the first Chevy dealership service manager tomorrow to try and get my money back because they did not fix the problem and the other Chevy dealer replaced the sensor and did a manual regen under warranty.


And if that dealer doesn't give you your money back for charging you for a process on a vehicle under warranty that was entirely due to their misdiagnosis, you may want to go up the food chain and talk directly with GM.


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## Taxman (Aug 10, 2017)

MP81 said:


> And if that dealer doesn't give you your money back for charging you for a process on a vehicle under warranty that was entirely due to their misdiagnosis, you may want to go up the food chain and talk directly with GM.


I fantasize about dragging manufacturers into court over crap like this:
"I took it to GM's factory authorized service center for repairs under warranty, they charged me $300 to not repair it, so I'm suing GM for breach of warranty"


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## MP81 (Jul 20, 2015)

I mean, it's not necessarily GM's fault - but it sure would get them to force the dealer either to shape up - or cease being a dealership.


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## johnmo (Mar 2, 2017)

Given my experiences with a certain Chevy dealership last year, I'd like to see them shaped up or ended. My experience with involving GM customer support was that it basically added another person peppering both the dealer and me with "is it done yet?" inquiries. There may have been some actual factory support people involved, but it would be better for everyone if that was transparent to the owner. In the end, I think it just soured both me and the dealer on each other. The dealer stopped returning my calls, but, given the kind of service I was getting, that was probably for the best.


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## Barry Allen (Apr 18, 2018)

Taxman said:


> I fantasize about dragging manufacturers into court over crap like this:
> "I took it to GM's factory authorized service center for repairs under warranty, they charged me $300 to not repair it, so I'm suing GM for breach of warranty"


Go to small claims court against the dealership. A local response to a small claims suit is more likely to get a full refund.


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## simplyrob (Jun 20, 2018)

I received the same P244A diagnostic code yesterday, I took the car to the dealership today and mentioned your post indicating that it was possibly caused by the "_*pressure differential sensor was out factory specs.*" The service writer basically did not want to hear it and said I should not believe what I read on the internet and it was a Regen issue. He also said that Regens are not covered by the warranty. I told him I drive 99.5% on the highway at 65-70 mph weekly to Big Bear and there was no way that I could have failed to complete a Regen and never received any indicator saying that I needed to continue driving 20 plus miles to complete the process. I drive my __electric car around town to avoid DEF issues. Anyway he calls me later and asks me if anyone else has worked on the car, stating there was a nut missing on a heat shroud, and a bolt shifted on the catalytic converter, and 3 wire harnesses were not snugly fit into a wire holder. I said I have faithfully over serviced my car at their dealership only and it has been only their mechanics performing service and no one else. I went to the dealership and asked him to show me, he could not because it was on the lift. Later the mechanic came in and said their preliminary visual findings in no way had anything to do with the code. He did mention the sensor, and it is arriving this Friday. The are fixing all of this under warranty... _


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