2005 BMW X5 DIESEL - LOW ON POWER

[X5Sport]

Jeez has this thread turned nasty! There are a lot of vacuum systems on cars regardless of whether they are diesel or petrol. The suggestion was made early on about checking the vaccum side of he system, and sure enough that is where the issue turned out to be.

One thing all of us have found with BMW Dealers is that their workshop teams are no longer Mechanics in the old way, but are 'Technicians' who are over reliant on their computer fault diagnostic systems. Like all computer based systems they are only as good as their programmers made them and if the sensor circuitry shows no fault because a fault condition does not have a sensor in that place then no fault will be recorded. It took a dealer 6 attempts to find that my low battery issue was actually a faulty starter motor! No sensor, no error!

When my gearbox destroyed itself I got no warning lights, but the transmission reported clutches B & D as being broken. A warning would have been nice there too!

BMW do not even allowtheir 'Technicians' to carry out certain repairs, instead they insist upon the Owner stumping up for a complete and usually unnecessary replacement.

So next time you go to a Dealer expecting (quite rightly) them to know exactly what's wrong, don't be surprised when they don't because they work from the computer, not 1st principles.

When you come on to this Board asking for help, please remember that most of us are not mechanics or technicians. We learned our skills from other members. The advice to check the vacuum system was sound and as it turned out, correct.

Now everyone be nice and let's not vent frustrations on any one particular member or another. Some of the verbal attacks in this thread are over the top and unnecessary. All you will achieve is stopping anyone helping you when you hit trouble in the future.

Over and Out.