Easter sunday went to get the papers. Car as per normal .Got papers , back in the car , started her up , she fired instantly as she always does , however the engine emissions light stayed on ( yellow engine symbol ). 10/15 seconds later whilst still stationary it started idling very roughly , as though it was running on 7 cylinders. MMMMMM,.......
Swith off...........start again.............exactly the same . Ok well it is a yellow light ,and it feels like a broken down plug. So we limp hime the 1.5 miles and park up. Came out an hour later and tried again ............still exactly the same . Had a good look and couldnt see anything obvious ( not that there is much to find ). Oh well ...best left alone and well try again tomorrow.
Next morning.............we try again.........starts fine......10...15.....seconds all ok .........20..30 and yes lumpy we go .....Bugger. This time its worse , its gotta be running on 4 cylinders.
Sounds terrible.......hope its not terminal. Ok thats it to the dealer it goes.
Tuesday it goes to the dealer..........24 Hrs later diagnosis is the vanos unit on one bank of the V8 has failed. Ok fine , please replace it and by the way im away for the next week so ill leave the car with you . Please get it fixed and anything else you find give me a ring .....thanks.
A week on saturday later , come back from i week off ( no phone calls )............ah yes well good news and bad............The car is fixed....Yipeee. The bad news was we replaced the vanos unit on one side , and ran the car. It ran rough. As we had it for a week we ran it again the next day again and we got same symptom as you had . Diagnostics indicated that the vanos unit on the other bank had failed as well. So we had to replace that one as well. Is this a comon problem ?
Er ..well no ...in fact we have only ever done 2 ( since 1999 ) . Its a mystery and to be honest the vanos units opperate at about 1000 psi so they are best changed. All i can say is im glad mine failed on startup and not at 5000 rpm at 160 mph as there would only be bits left i would imagine. Anyone else had this problem ? Just curious. Total damage for the repair bill was just shy of £ 1100.00 .
The reason i put this article here is that if the emissions light illuminates its normally a sensor failure ( so im reliably told ) and the handbook does say check at your earliest convenience ( as opposed to switch off and do it immediately ). So if you get a light , treat her nice as it could have been a lot , lot worse.
Anyway...........i have to say , it seems to go a little better and im still deliriously happy.
:M5thumbs:
Swith off...........start again.............exactly the same . Ok well it is a yellow light ,and it feels like a broken down plug. So we limp hime the 1.5 miles and park up. Came out an hour later and tried again ............still exactly the same . Had a good look and couldnt see anything obvious ( not that there is much to find ). Oh well ...best left alone and well try again tomorrow.
Next morning.............we try again.........starts fine......10...15.....seconds all ok .........20..30 and yes lumpy we go .....Bugger. This time its worse , its gotta be running on 4 cylinders.
Sounds terrible.......hope its not terminal. Ok thats it to the dealer it goes.
Tuesday it goes to the dealer..........24 Hrs later diagnosis is the vanos unit on one bank of the V8 has failed. Ok fine , please replace it and by the way im away for the next week so ill leave the car with you . Please get it fixed and anything else you find give me a ring .....thanks.
A week on saturday later , come back from i week off ( no phone calls )............ah yes well good news and bad............The car is fixed....Yipeee. The bad news was we replaced the vanos unit on one side , and ran the car. It ran rough. As we had it for a week we ran it again the next day again and we got same symptom as you had . Diagnostics indicated that the vanos unit on the other bank had failed as well. So we had to replace that one as well. Is this a comon problem ?
Er ..well no ...in fact we have only ever done 2 ( since 1999 ) . Its a mystery and to be honest the vanos units opperate at about 1000 psi so they are best changed. All i can say is im glad mine failed on startup and not at 5000 rpm at 160 mph as there would only be bits left i would imagine. Anyone else had this problem ? Just curious. Total damage for the repair bill was just shy of £ 1100.00 .
The reason i put this article here is that if the emissions light illuminates its normally a sensor failure ( so im reliably told ) and the handbook does say check at your earliest convenience ( as opposed to switch off and do it immediately ). So if you get a light , treat her nice as it could have been a lot , lot worse.
Anyway...........i have to say , it seems to go a little better and im still deliriously happy.
:M5thumbs:
Glad you got it fixed and everything is ok and without doing any more damage. One thing, I thought VANOS was much more expensive than that. Did you get a GREAT deal or is there different levels of VANOS replacement? Good luck.
