[brent112]

I am hoping someone here can help, or at least point me in the right direction.

I purchased my 2011 328xi about a year and a half ago, it has been pretty much problem free and has around 125K miles on it. About a month ago i thought it would be a good idea to swap out the spark plugs as it had never been done as far as i could tell. I replaced the spark plugs and after starting the engine something odd happened. The RPM's were jumping between idle and 2K rpm, the engine felt like it was going to stall out. I stopped the engine after about 5 seconds, i re-seated all of the coil packs and started it back up and it was fine. I chalked it up to be not plugging a coil in all of the way.

Fast forward to last week, i park my car at work in the morning and about 10 hours later when i am leaving (temperatures are around 0F at this point in time). I go to start my car and the exact same thing happens. Engine starts bucking and i power it off. I waited a few seconds, powered it back on and it started doing the same thing again, i then got the dreaded "Engine Malfunction, Reduced Power Output" message so i powered the car off. I then started it again and held my foot on the throttle to maintain around 2,500 rpm's, at this point i figured all of this was because the engine was cold. After letting it sit around 2,500 rpm's for 2-3 minutes i shut the car off and started it back up and it was like nothing had ever happened.

I was able to drive it home (around 25 miles) with no issues. As soon as i got home i plugged in my bluetooth ODB reader and the following are the codes that appears. I had just checked my codes a couple of days prior and none of these were there, i am not sure if these are the direct cause of the issue, or if they were just caused by the engine rpm fluctuations / near stalling when it was acting up.

Motor Control:
Engine / Motor
Valvetronic, Antrieb: traege oder ausenen Kreislauf
Code: 002A38
Valvetronic, Stellmotor: Plausibilitaet
Code: 002A45
Ecu, interner Fehler: Valvetronic-Ausgang
Code: 002A77
Valvetronic, Servomotor: Stromversorgung
Code: 002A3F
Aussetzererkennung Zylinder 2 in 4. Zuendfolge
Code: 0029CE
ABS / DSC / Brake:
Dynamische Stabilitaets Kontrolle / DSC
ME Fehler / Torque ungueltig
Code: 005F77

Since this occurrence it has not happened again, the car has ran fine. I have cleared the codes and they have not returned. Do you think all of this could have just been an oddity from the cold weather? Any help would be appreciated.

[djh2]

If you want to do some more research, you might find more information searching for the last 4 numbers of each code 002a17 -> 2a17.

Valvetronic is related to the intake and exhaust from the engine and your issue is probably related to that in some way. My feeling is a sensor somewhere has started failing.

I had some engine bucking and a transmission error message and it turned out to be my crankshaft position sensor. Similar issue, different codes, but I’d search for issues with your codes and maybe it’s a clear repair.