got a new VANOS unit on the M3 and went huntin' yesterday afternoon after the work was done

CivicTypeR - piece of pi55
Boxster 2.7 - piece of pi55
Boxster S - harder but a piece of **** (he thought I was a 318is in drag) sorry, bye bye

I am so happy the car is like a different car

BMW M Power, don't you just love it?

 

What were the symptoms of the old unit being duff? What actually failed?

 

funny noise coming from the unit itself, you could hear the noise in 1st at idle but then the engine noise itself drowns it out

if you lift the bonnet and stick a wooden broom handle on the unit and place the other end in the ear you can hear a grinding type noise

dunno if I am imagining it but when I bought the car there was two distinct steps in accerlerating one at 2,500ish and the next at 4-5 grand

The steps seemed less distinct, not normal

They are a weakness of the engine (I didn't know this)

 

Did BMW pay for the part? My understanding is that they pay for the part but not labour so long as you have FBMWSH.

 

This is quite a common problem on the E36 M3's. They usually go around the 60K miles mark although some cars don't develop the problem. Something to look out for if you are thinking of buying one.

The Vsnos unit went on a friends M3 and yes BMW did pay for the part but not labour although you have to go sort it out with them before getting the work done as they won't pay up after you have had it fixed. The better part of £2K if you have to get it fixed yourself I believe.

However it does make a huge difference. Before my friend got his Vanos sorted I was easily able to pull 7-8 car lengths on him (on test runs ) in my STI Type R but after it was fixed I could only pull about 3-4 car lengths on him

 

CC, how much did you pay for it?

 

I had to pay the whole ****ing lot as the car was bought with no warranty

lets just say it was veerrryyy fooookkkiinn expensive

 

No warranty needed. Did it have FBMWSH?

 

VANOS went on my M3 Evo when i had it, all sorted under warranty.

Indded it does make a difference, hopefully you wont be posting any rubbish anymore about slower cars keeping up with you (S2000) or losing to cars which are equally fast (RS6)

 

Name a price CC.....

 

Circa 2,000 apparently...

Might be too painful to say though!!

Cheers,
Grant

 

Fliiiipppin eck......ive got an m3 evo too...hope my vanos doesnt go.....

 

Hang on guys,

Are you telling me that on a 40K motor there is a part that costs around 2K to replace that is actually known to go wrong usually by the time you've got a mere 60K miles on the car. Sorry and I'm not just BMW bashing again, but the fact that it goes wrong at all is just incredible.

In my opnion for that money nothing apart from consumables should ever go wrong before at least 120K miles.

tiggers.

 

No warranty ??? Where did you buy the car from, and how long ago.

Ive read in a few articles, that a car dealer cannot sell a car without a waranty of some sort. It is also illegal to sell an unroadworthy car, even if 'sold as seen, or sold as scrap'.
If he allows you to drive it away in that state, then he is apparently breaking the law. never enforced, im sure, but apparently true.
Back to the warranty bit. It would apply more to newer, low milage cars, but either way....If a dealer/trader sells a car, that daveops a ( major i think ) fault within a short period of time ( say 6 months ) Then it is deemed that the fault was already evident at the time of sale, and that teh trader must stand over the repairs, as it is assumed he sold a knowingly faulty vehicle.

Not sure how it would go in a small claims court or otherwise, but may be worth a look, given the amount of money it costs to fix. Citizens advise may be able to go into more detail about teh law on this matter. I am just repeating from memory, what I read in a leaflet about home traders and traders in general a few months ago with Car Mechanics magazine.

 

tiggers, that also seems to be the opinion of BMW given that they are replacing the part for free

 

jlanng,

Two points

1) It shouldn't go wrong in the first place - isn't doesn't matter whether they replace it free of charge or not.

2) In CC's case they aren't paying for it

tiggers.

 

Tiggers, no car should go wrong, but they do...!

CC, glad you're enjoying it even more now, mate.

Rich

 

it was bought trade. it was a p/x that I bought as 'trader' so no comeback. I bought it cheap so all in all I am not too out of pocket

 

Don't want to knock BM'S but you should have bought a Honda

 

Which particular Honda were you thinking of?

 

Honda's never had a Vtec failure