A buddy is looking at a use 2010 Grand Sport and he went to see it Friday. He said they mentioned that the dash said "Reduced Engine Power" and he just texted me to ask what it meant. I'm looking for a C6 currently myself and I have no idea. Is there a standout reason that it would display that?

 

The most likely reason is the throttle body has gone bad. It could be another issue but this is the most common problem regarding Chevys regarding reduced engine power on the display. You don't have to buy the whole assembly anymore, just the plastic side of it.

 

Not frequent but sometimes it's been one of the two gas pedal sensors but that usually causes several dash warning lights to come on and puts the car in limp mode until replacement of gas pedal.

 

Check codes, if no reader take t to a parts store. They'll read codes for free. Got to know what computer's pointing at, everything else is guessing & these cars have a lot of parts.

Get codes & report back what's there.

 

could have a plug wire off the coil...it throws all sorts of codes when that happens and runs like crap....They didn't say how the car ran in this thread or if they even drove it...

 

Personally, I wouldn't even consider buying a car that has "reduced engine power" on the DIC. Why wouldn't the owner have that taken care of that before trying to sell it? Is it at an auction site or something similar? If it's a private owner sale, I can only guess what else is wrong with the car. I would definitely pass on that one. JMHO

 

I don't think that I would automatically pass on the car but I would certainly think that the seller is a dummy for not getting it fixed before putting it up for sale. It could be a ten minute fix or it could be something like a bad throttle body...either way, he will take a bigger hit than the cost of the repair.

 

I wanna put my eyeballs on a control sheet that shows all possible inputs and setpoints to the 'reduced engine power' feedback. Maybe it's run purely off of rpms and the engine wanted more RPMs than it got. My 2006 Vette just recent, it would start shutting off the engine and also putting this 'Reduced Engine Power' message. And then I end up on the side of the road. If I try to immediately start the car, then I hear the starter cranking, but the car ignores it. But if I wait a moment longer, then for some reason, the car fires right up. I go further down the road, and then the same thing. Tends to happen at relatively low throttle, constant speed, 20-55 mph.


Now this may or may not matter, but for many months prior to the first incident of my woes, was the check engine light on, reporting a multitude of codes including 'lean fuel bank 1' 'lean fuel bank 2'. Because of these codes, and because of my fuel gauge being broken, I had the following done in the last 2 months prior to having the issues with my engine turning off:

- new fuel sending unit.

- new fuel pumps

- new MAF

- new cat converters

- new coolant thermostatic valve. (That wasn't code related, it failed shut and overheated my engine in a hurry).

- smoke test found nothing.


I can say that my car's been running uneasy when I use moderate to heavy braking. It acts like it wants to stall. Badly hesitates for a full second before accelerating. Doesn't like sudden RPM drops I'm figuring. Why? Not sure. I can say that once on an extra warm winter day, there wasn't a CEL as usual. And the engine didn't exhibit any I-might-stall-if-you-brake-too-hard feelings. So maybe the source of the lean engine bank codes (which I still ain't found) is also behind the engine threatening to stall under braking jazz.


Maybe the meaning of the 'reduced engine power' message is that for reasons that the computer doesn't understand, the engine turned off and failed to deliver the power demanded by the computer, and the computer didn't receive a trip signal from any sensors. Maybe a fuel pump issue, and depending on how much a wire that was displaced by the install is getting pinched, the fuel pump relay kills my pumps.


163k miles.


Wisdom for those that reached the bottom of my thread: Don't ever switch out your rubber engine mounts for solid engine mounts. Worst thing I did to that car. That was about 8-12 months ago. Heavy vibration across engine and frame and body. And don't use the rough side of a kitchen sponge on your paint. I learned that lesson the hard way, and I can't get those scratches out with a porter cable and paint correcting polish. And if you have tire air leakage at the inside wall bead of non-new tires, it's more likely the aluminum wheel than the tire.

 

Walk away, since it if was a simple fix, then seller would have fixed it already.

And to add, when looking at a Vet, make sure to bring a code reader that can read down to the body lever of the car to check for codes to begin with, and since Most C6's will have an after market tune on them, helps to be able to pull up the tune to see what codes are been turned off in the tune, that the code ready to body level, is not going to pick up since they have been turned off.

And if all this is beyond a buyer, then pay to have a pre purchase inspection down on the car by a shot that you can truxt, before you even talk price/

Hence step one, find a car you want to look at, and get the vin # so you can do an carfax and pull a GM service history on the car.
If these check out, then you now go look at the car to get a feel of it was well kept or not (not just washed and washed before you get there to gleam it), make the arrangements to take it to a shop you trust to have PPI down on the car to really do a fine tooth inspection on it, then if all the above checks out, then you can start to talk price.

Failure to do the above steps on a corvette, could end up costing you thousands of dollars in just parts for needed repairs (labor much more as well), after you have bought the car for way too much to begin with. And yes, a Corvette that has has been wrecked in any way, will go for much less than one that has not instead. If car has a salvage title, then car is only worth about half the value of one that still has a clean value, but don't want to go down the path of a salvage title corvette in the first place.

 

I would list ALL DTC’s that you have seen…many R.E.P are throttle body related so I would possibly concentrate on the Throttle Position Sensor.

 

This original thread is 8 years old. I had the same thing happen a couple of times 2 years ago......just disconnected the battery and reconnected and it solved the problem for me......then I realized it was due to the ground underneath the battery was a bit loose.