[Fulltone74]

Hi all:

So today; i started my car in the morning, and I noticed about a few seconds after startup, the engine was shuttering slightly for about a few seconds and settled down as normal. Car did it for three subsequent starts, with the last one causing the SES light to go on.

Would this be an idle control valve issue?
It only does this for a few seconds right after startup. It will start fine, the revs start out around 1300 rpm and quickly fall to about 700 rpm as normal. But a few seconds after startup, there is some shuddering that goes away after a few seconds. Otherwise, the car runs and drives normally.

I'll drop by the local BMW shop tomorrow to get the code read, but I figure some of you may have experienced this before.

 

[Fulltone74]

So went to the shop to have the code checked out --
It was a mix of a Vanos position error and misfire codes on the driver's side bank.

Put in a new set of spark plugs and boots. The shop tech noted nothing was particularly noteworthy about the old spark plugs ( not fouled or burnt ). They just looked like normal wear after 50k miles.

Car does seem to run crisper with the new plugs, though the Vanos position error and startup vibration persists.
The vibration goes away shortly after startup and car runs fine otherwise.

The shop technician suspects some kind of wear on the Vanos that creates problems at startup until the oil pressure builds up.

Could this be a leaky seals or solenoids issue, or a cam sensor issue?

Looked at the Dr. Vanos site. and it's mentioned that the cam sensors could cause the rough idle issues. Though wouldn't that be constant rather than for a few seconds?


The technician told me that when such an issue occurs, the DME "parks" the Vanos in a fixed position.
Though, my car runs just about the same -- actually a bit better with the new plugs.
If the Vanos was parked in a fixed position, wouldn't the low end torque be rather weak?

 

[Fulltone74]

I forgot to add:

The shop did update the engine software.
They installed whatever is BMW's latest and greatest software update for the S62 engine.
I don't know exactly what is changed in the software -- that might explain the bit of performance gain after the first look at the car.

 

[vantaam5]

Well,where should I start.....


The misfire errors are Vanos related.So changing spark plugs and boots was a nice exercise but not more....


Solenoids and CPS can have intermittent errors.

Which error code did it throw?

Position control or cam position sensor?


Updating the software might depending on the old software change the throttle response a bit.NO power gain....

Please bring your beast to someone who knows about these cars.

Your "tech" has no clue what is going on...

 

[Fulltone74]

It was a Vanos positioning error.
I actually didn't know about the vanos error until after the
plug change. At first I was told it was misfires, but maybe I didn't hear the diagnosis correctly.
Otherwise, I would have figured from the outset that plugs aren't the root cause.

 

[v8fan]

At the risk of showing my complete ignorance in this area I have made the following observation/conclusion:

My car that is an 2000/09 at 145tkm that had the old Vanos reservoir and an accompanying terrible startup noise. The engine also was running a bit uneven the first several seconds. I had the reservoir changed (there's another thread in here about that) - after that the startup noise have gone (almost) but this change has made it clearer that there also is an initial Vanos position problem.
As this lasts for about 5 seconds and only if the engine has been turned off for some minutes I made the assumption that I need to change the Vanos solenoid seals because they obviously are leaking (this is where my ignorance might show) The engine is otherwise ok, has a reasonable gas milegage (for an M5...) and no other misfires.

And yes - I'll go read the codes

Would somebody wiser than me comment on this - and is this symptom the same as the threadowners ?

 

[Fulltone74]

V8Fan:

What you describe is exactly what my symptoms are...

 

[Fulltone74]

I went to test 14 on the dash menu.
There is one entry that says;
Diag 1 BF 88 029.

I looked at the sticky on peake codes:
Is the code BF or 88?
Is 029 the number of times the fault occurred?

BF by the table is "ignition output cylinder 7".
88 on the table is idle speed controller.
Am I reading this right?

Thanks all.

 

[Fulltone74]

All the other entries in test 14 have 000,
as the last three digits.

 

[feeblebob]

The dash error codes aren't Peake codes, chap, they're codes from a different system.

Quoted from RichardP's post in : http://www.m5board.com/vbulletin/e3...0903-read-fault-codes-right-your-cluster.html (includes a list of the IKE codes)

"The Peake only reads/clears codes from the DME, these codes are stored in the IKE. You can clear them with various diagnostic utilities, I have PASoft 1.4."

I would double-check what's being referred to.

Edit - Your error seems to be an instrument cluster message, common it seems, as far as the last thread, not much to worry about.

 

[EQ Tuning]

...

 

[Fulltone74]

Been away in taiwan on a business trip for a month -- Got back a week ago, so i get to continue this Vanos saga.

So I went to another shop for another opinion.

They ran the GT1 tests and found that on the driver's side, it was failing the inlet leakage test and the Vanos position control test and throwing codes for both.

They pulled the solenoid board and sent me some pics. It had some gunk on it, and a few of the filter screens were missing the screens altogether. Took a chance to simply have the solenoids cleaned and new seals put on.

So after doing this, it passed the GT1 inlet leakage test, but failed on the range adjustment test and also continued to throw codes for misfires only on the drivers side.

Put in new intake and exhaust cam sensors on the driver's side (i don't believe they'd ever been changed from looking at the service records), but it still has the same misfire codes and vanos adjustment error -- but still passes the inlet leakage test.

So if the solenoid board was bad, wouldn't it always yield an inlet leakage failure, or could a bad solenoid board have a passing leakage test but fail the adjustment test?

So for those that know a lot more than me about this:
Should I just get a remanufactured Vanos from Dr. Vanos, or would it be possible that the Vanos timing needs to be looked at and reset?

The shop foreman told me that he has changed many Vanos units, but virtually never has seen the physical timing of the Vanos be out of range, and was steering me away from spending the labor to check the timing. Does that sound right to you all?

At this point, I'm more inclined to get a new Vanos from Dr. Vanos, since the price for that is only a couple hundred bucks more than a new board. Just don't want to go through the expense of that, only to find out that its just the Vanos timing that needs to be adjusted. Seems though that would be a worthwhile item to check just as a PM.

 

[Fulltone74]

Okay.
So at long last the saga is over...

Sent out the solenoid board to Dr. Vanos, and they confirmed one of the solenoids was non-functional.
They got the board fixed up and shipped back out the same day they got it and got it delivered to the shop the next day

Shop put the board in, and the driver's side passed all the GT1 tests.
Car runs very smooth and strong now, and much more eager to rev.
Has a nice deep purr --

In the process of troubleshooting, I had the shop put in new cam sensors on the driver's side before pulling the board -- Didn't help, but since the consensus is that they are PM items, i figured it was a calculated risk to try out.

Anyway, many kudos to Dr. Vanos for a great service at a great price !!