6-cyl double vanos problem assessment

[Zak]

Well one more victim right here. I live in canada and it gets really darm cold up here. My 328CI started doing this some a couple months ago. I have an appointment at a local BMW shop next week and I'm almost certain that my VANOS will need to be replaced. I will print out your letters and bring them in with me and see what he says. I too am a Mechanical Engineer! Its always nice to see the service rep. squirm when they are dealing with someone who actually knows what the problem is... I will Keep you posted on the outcome.

Thanks a lot for your hard work!
Zak
2000 328CI.

[ZakR]

Well one more victim right here. I live in canada and it gets really darm cold up here. My 328CI started doing this some a couple months ago. I have an appointment at a local BMW shop next week and I'm almost certain that my VANOS will need to be replaced. I will print out your letters and bring them in with me and see what he says. I too am a Mechanical Engineer! Its always nice to see the service rep. squirm when they are dealing with someone who actually knows what the problem is... I will Keep you posted on the outcome.

Thanks a lot for your hard work!
Zak
2000 328CI.

[ZakR]

Well one more victim right here. I live in canada and it gets really darm cold up here. My 328CI started doing this some a couple months ago. I have an appointment at a local BMW shop next week and I'm almost certain that my VANOS will need to be replaced. I will print out your letters and bring them in with me and see what he says. I too am a Mechanical Engineer! Its always nice to see the service rep. squirm when they are dealing with someone who actually knows what the problem is... I will Keep you posted on the outcome.

Thanks a lot for your hard work!
Zak
2000 328CI.

[Bo528]

If you do a search, I've posted a lot about this in the past with no results.
-1999 BMW 528iA-

[ACS_Nick]

I seriously hope BMW steps up and does something about this. Excellent writeup Loach & Rajaie, good work.

[JeffDunes]

I have the problem on my 2000 328Ci. When the ambient tempurature is roughly 50 degrees or less and the engine is cold, the idle dips sharply every minute or so, until the engine warms up. The problem does not occur when the engine is warmed up or when the ambient tempurature is above 60 degrees. When warm the idle is steady as it should be all the time.

[ZakR]

My dealer quoted me 1300$ plus tax to fix this problem.

[johnc619]

Zak,

I too have a 328ci e46 and experiencing the problems stated above. I was wondering if you knew if this double vanos problem will lead to any other mechanical failures.

[jtt777]

BMW NA Customer Service,

You saw this note and said you would be getting back to us 2 weeks ago? What happened?

I had this covered under warrantly once but surpise surpise i'm dealing with it again and now I'm outside warranty. We should not be forking over $1000+ because of a bad seal especially if you failed to fix the problem the first time around.

I've already had the subframe problem on my car ($2000) which wasn't covered by BMW NA even though it was an an obvious design flaw with the first couple 328ci models which BMW AG covered. Please don't screw me over again.

Regards,
Jeff

[JimC]

[blue]

engines and their years?

I am in the market for a used BMW and would like to know which ones to avoid if possible.

Thanks for the article.
-blue

[DTisa]

OLD GUY...he farts dust out of his [Oops!].

[nukeman]

Count me in for the Vanos problem...I've been complaining to the dealer about this for a long time, and have gotten no positive responses...only the "everything's fine" response.

Certainly hope BMW NA steps up to the plate on this issue, as I, too, am out of warranty (but was not when I first started complaining!)

Go UCONN!

Nuke

[adrean8j]

Great work Loach and Rajaie! I have a euro-spec 523i and the exact same problem....but all these symptoms did not show up until after a camshaft swap....any reason why that would happen or was it just bound to happen? My car was running like a champ before that...and then we had the horrible idle, timing seemed to be off....we replace the inlet valve(?) and then put a whole new VANOS on it..but the car still has cold start problems and a curious(knocking/ticking noise not reall loud or anything but if you stop and listen for it then you notice it). I am tempted to ask BMW over here in Germany the same questions you have been asking BMWNA....

[ctsmith]

Another failed vanos here (1999 528it), then again the only M52TU's with vanos that works are those that have had the units replaced recently...

[SteveW]

I have had a performance problem for years that BMW could not "reproduce" on a 2000 528i automatic. Then the rough idle began and after I forced them to sit in a cold car and start it, they indeed felt the rough idle. They said the could not find a problem and completly reinstalled all the software for the engine (or so they said) and the issue went away. No more idle or perforance problems it was like a new car, for about 30 days. Now it is back to "normal" rough idle at cold start and lagging at midrange performance. With regards to your previous diagnoses, how would a software installation correct the problem and then resurface after 30 days?

[rajaieq]

Here’s some speculation.

What they did probably reset your adaptation values. This particularly applies to your auto tranny. This reset might have caused the DME to not utilize the cats’ warm-up phase for a period. Maybe the adaptation values needed to be gathered before turning on the cats warm-up feature. Once the adaptation values were collected and set the cats’ warm-up phase was enabled.

You can disconnect your battery for a few minutes and see if this has the same effect.
Let us know.
Rajaie
528i 5sp 06/00

[SteveW]

OK... I think you're right. I remember the mechanic said the car will have to re-adapt to your driving and they upgraded the tranny software...
I'll try the battery disconnect and let you know.
Thanks!

[poolman]

From my understanding from what has beeen posted above that the Vanos problem is limited to cars 01 and back, is this correct? If the problem is also found in later models (I have a 03-525i)are there
details anywhere that one may tackle this job as a diy?
I guess that I'm really getting the cart before the horse though if one can't but the O rings as replacements.
Thanks for a great read on a problem that could affect all with inline six engines.
C Roberson

[SRR2]

I was describing this mess to a friend when an idea/question popped into my head.

As I understand the operation of the two pistons, they both get push-pull commands from the vanos solenoid valves. Is that right?

Ok, here's the idea: what do you think would happen if you'd just take the spring out? Sure, it wouldn't crank all the way forward right away by default at startup, but the demands on the seals would be greatly reduced and the chances they'd operate in normal push-pull mode would probably be much higher. I think you already have the evidence you need about this because all the descriptions of the problems have centered on the exhaust side -- IOW, where the spring is. So sacrifice some small operating margin at cold start, but get back normal operation the rest of the time.