[achong]

Hi guys,

I started the car one morning and the car began to idle very roughly. I try to let the car sort itself out, but soon enough a CEL goes off. I grab my Evolve cable and scan the car. Sure enough the codes point to the Vanos on bank 1.

Got the following codes:

48 Intake camshaft Vanos retard valve, Cyl#1-4
B8 Intake camshaft Vanos position control, Cyl#1-4
43 Intake camshaft Vanos advance valve, Cyl#1-4

I didn't want to drive the car in the current condition but I eventually took out the board, and had my buddy resoldered the joints, freshened up the orings, and tested each of the solenoids with a 9v. We thought all was well, and went back to installing the board. I even ordered the new covers (since mine is a 2000) with the set screws (damn cost me around $200) just for the covers and screws...

I reinstalled the board, test drove the car around the block, went and cleared the codes. All seemed to go well for a few days. After awhile the codes came back. The second time the CEL went on first and idling and drivability did not change.
The next day the car started to have intermittent rough idling. I drove the car a good distance to see how it was driving. I couldn't feel any misfiring, but I could tell the car was definitely down on power. The rough idling would come and go. During initial start up the engine would idle very roughly. Later on the engine would smooth itself out and the rough idling would go away after maybe 10 minutes of driving.

I scanned the car, and same set of codes were present. I took out the vanos board again on bank 1, and AH HA!! Noticed one of the yellow wires got pretty chewed up.

Could this be causing all the issues/codes?

It's really such a shame that the s62's reliability and power can be plagued by such a small little device. You would think BMW would have designed a better solenoid board since the motor is so dependent on these units.

 

[68FB]

The 48 and 43 codes mean the DME is seeing an electrical short or open circuit on those two solenoids. That yellow wire is the common ground for the two intake cam solenoids and it is obviously shorted to ground. The DME saw that short and set the codes. In other words, that's your problem.

You need to protect that wire and tuck it out of the way so it doesn't get pinched by the cover.

 

[achong]

Thanks! I'm actually in the process of putting the shrink wrap back on the wire.

 

[aquvist]

Did you clean/flush the solenoids aswell? removed the filter mesh if it was broken?

 

[cumbrian]

It's very easy to pinch that wire and not see it - ask me how I know. (When I did it I checked for codes after start up and they came up, so I didn't find out how it would respond to being driven).

If you rotate the solenoid gently you can snug the wire up towards it (without putting it under strain) which helps to keep it inboard of the cover.

+1 to a thorough clean and filter removal.

 

[achong]

I will take another round of cleaning it before reinstalling it tonight. The filters were already taken off the first time I took the board out.

Thanks guys! I will report back shortly today.

 

[achong]

Thanks guys! I just popped the board back in during my lunch break, and she's firing smoothly on all 8. Didn't have time to reset the code, but hopefully if everything checks out it should go away on it's own. I'll report back if anything changes!