Was hoping my 1st post here was gonna be one of excitement, but all excitement about the 2013 BMW X5 Xdrive50i i just bought came to a screeching halt about 4 hrs ago...
Picked it up at about 6pm on the 4th(two days ago) and drove the 220 miles back home. No issues. Love the truck. Have logged right at 300 miles total since i bought it. My son and i hopped in it and was headed down the hwy, tooling along at 70-75mph on West Texas flat highway and all of the sudden it kinda nosed over for a split second, much like just tapping the brakes. My son and i looked at each other wondering what that was? Then Engine malfunction displayed on the NAV screen saying it was in reduced power mode. Said it was possible to drive but needed to go to nearest BMW dealer. At that time i noticed what sounded like a plastic panel flapping up front. Was hard to hear while moving. Pulled over and opened the door when i heard a knocking and loud metallic "chirping" sound. My immediate thought was a pulley bearing out(except for the knocking). We were about 7miles from home so we turned around and putted home at 40mph. Inside the vehicle, it was not very noticeable but everyone in town sure heard us coming as we limped to our house. When home the "chirping" had stopped and now you could just hear the loud knocking. No smoke, no funny smells, no leaking fluids.
After further checking, it sounds like the knocking is coming from the center of the motor, about the middle to rear of the turbos. I did pull the outlet to the compressor sides of the turbos and do not see any debris of any kind between the turbo and the intercoolers. Thats as far as i went and buttoned it back up.
I was thinking possible turbo failure as that could explain the metallic chirping but i've never heard a turbo knock. From my experience with turbos, one typically sees smoke/oil out the tail pipe when there is bearing failure, but see no evidence of this.
The X5 has 59,000 miles on it. It was a certified used vehicle that I bought from AutoNation(big Ford dealer) in Ft. Worth. Vehicle came with a 90 day, 4000 mi warranty(i'd say i'm well in that...lol). They are trying to get it into a BMW dealer, the closest of which is in Midland, Tx(100mi West of me). Forgot to mention it has the M Performance package, which i believe is the 440hp version?
Anyone have any ideas as to whats wrong?
-Mark