Vanos replacement?

[candersoh]

thought i would tee this up for any advice...

i have a check engine light and brought my 2001 vin#61088 into bmw austin. the diagnostic report reads -
#7 signal, camshaft sensor, inlet, bank 1
#184 function, inlet VANOS, bank 1

my service rep at bmw austin added the following in an email to me yesterday:
----------------
Chris,

I am getting ready to fax this to you but wanted to give you a little better explanation first.

You will see the first fault set as the camshaft sensor bank 1, but as discussed earlier, he strongly feels that the 2nd fault (vanos)is causing the camshaft sensor fault. He has seen this happen quite a few times, the camshaft sensor not being needed.

While connected to diagnostic equipment, it lays out a test plan. It calls for bringing your vehicle up to operating temperature while testing Vanos unit. At that time it was detected that the Vanos unit did not go to limits. The next step it calls for is replacing the Vanos unit. It has a hydraulic pressure leak internally, This would be a different malfunction that you have read about as far as hearing a mechanical rattling noise. I have seen that malfunction too but not on yours.

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anyone have any thoughts before i go ahead and pay for the very costly replacement?
thanks

[Norcal]

I know the Cam sensor is no big deal... How much for the vanos?

[candersoh]

I know the Cam sensor is no big deal... How much for the vanos?

the quote is around 4K...

[thegunguy]

Talk about a worthless email. I've read on this in the past. It's not un common in all the VANOS cars, but the S62 seems to have a stronger unit with fewer failures. It seems like the solenoid is a common failure point, but I'm not sure that you would need a whole VANOS unit. Might also be a gear. What's the full repair quote?

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts...74&hg=11&fg=15

[candersoh]

spoke with dana (peter pan) and the vanos will NOT reach limits with a faulty cam sensor. so, cam sensor should be replaced first then see if vanos will reach limits. 99% of time this will fix the problem. throwing the baby out with bathwater to just move forward with vanos replacement.

[macfly]

Great news, and more or less what I expected.

[Juergen Wunderlich]

I definitely second Dana?s opinion and would go with the change of the sensor first too. That is exactly our experience so far with this issue. Please take a look at the attached file.

[candersoh]

thx juergen. i will arm myself with this info as well. dealer is very open to receiving input on this fix. don't know how i would be getting this far along without you all and the site (thx andrew for the forum). i will post results after cam sensor replacement. hope it does the trick...

[MarkZ8]

If you still need vanos work, check these folks out. They are local to you...www.drvanos.com.

[Machinegun]

If you want to come to houston I can look at it here if needed. I would go with the sensor first.

Larry Nissen
Advantage BMW Clear Lake
Shopforeman
[email protected]

[thegunguy]

You might want to change all four CPS while you're at it. They tend to fail at similar mileage. Glad Dana was able to help.

[Z8Mania]

Great information here- thank you fellas and good luck with it Chris.

[zed8]

I had the same problem on my `00. I changed the cam position sensor and some of the sensors on the exhaust system. Now I have no CEL. Those faulty sensors triggers the working sensors as if they are faulty. So you better change the cheap sensors one by one and check if the CEL goes off.

[candersoh]

UPDATE - after replacing the cam sensor, the check engine light went off and the vanos was fine. passed emissions as well. thanks for everyone that shared info here. without this info, the dealer was firmly willing and advising to move forward with the vanos replacement. instead of roughly $500, i would have been out over $5,000. thanks and i hope that this info might be of help to others.

[thegunguy]

Great news. Be on the look out for the same error in the near future. The sensors commonly go about the same time. If you get a failure in one of the existing sensors, you might want to share some labor and have the remaining two changed.

[Machinegun]

Glad it all worked out. If you need anything let me know.

[Z8Mania]

Well, my check engine soon light just came on today... The car is running fine, no weird noises, no loss of power. No nuthin. So I am hopping its just a bad sensor........ She goes in to see the doctor next thursday.

[macfly]

Good luck!

[thegunguy]

Even with a good shop like Dana close by, I like being able to read and reset my own codes. Because "there's an app for that", I chose one of the iPhone apps. I'm not crazy about the one I got, but it does the job. I need to see if there is something better out there. It pairs up via wifi to a device that plugs in to the OBDII port under the dash. It works really well, and it's how I've sorted all my CPS issues and even cleared some erroneous codes that can happen when the computer misses a beat. They're around $100 and quite useful even if just being better able to communicate with your shop when you take the car in for service (or as in the case of the OP, research an issue where the shop is clueless).

Codes + Google = some great info.

As far as what's "different" on a CPS fault, the cam will go to a default setting where it will no longer actuate to optimize torque across the rev range. My gut tells me that it defaults to a low RPM setting as around town, it behaves normally, but I never revved the engine with the fault out of caution. So, my guess is just that.

[jim]

Great dialogue re; sensors. On point, anyone had passenger side AIRBAG red dash light come on/stay on like mine has?
js
60041

[macfly]

No, thats the first time I've heard of this.