Engine light, Vanos??

W

Waite01

Member
I have been having the engine light come on every 3 or 4 weeks on my coupe. Scanning it seems to always bring up either p0012 or p1554 which I believe are vanos related? This is how it has gone:
Always threw up p1554
Cleaned and swapped solenoids
P1554 a few times
Cleaned solenoids again
P0012
P1554 a few times again
Now has changed back to always p0012 without me doing anything.

The car sometimes stutters when stopping and will stutter once each time it's used just driving along.

Car was serviced and had new plugs when I bought it as it had a slight misfire. Since this I have not seen the type of fuel consumption I used too, it always stays fairly low even over long trips. This issue was present before that.

I took it to a specialist for diagnostics, was told that it is likely the camshaft ledge bearings but all they did was scan it, no investigation. Thought this was a tad extreme!

Any ideas?? Sorry for the long post!!
 
I had a VANOS solenoid issue but always had 2 codes come up - camshaft timing and VANOS mechanically jammed. Tried cleaning but it came back. Didn't bother swapping position just got a new solenoid, problem solved. The EML was intermittent with it too but my symptoms were a single hesitation at steady speed.
When you swapped them over did the fault move to the other bank?
 
As far as I know his won't cause any problems so you can sit on it for a while - the solenoids are only £80 each (only!) and would be the first step BMW would take to resolve the fault. I'm no sure how you get bearings just from those codes. How many miles are you on?
 
Can you describe the "single hesitation at steady speed" issue you had? I'm having something like that once in a while driving at cruising speed. Feel like someone is pulling the car back and releasing again in 0.5s, while I hear a little zrzrzrzrrzrzrz sound.

Do you have the part number of the solenoids? The ones I found on turnermotorsports are 800 us$ each :o
 
Are you in the US?
I would be driving at about 40 mph, steady speed and then it would feel like the car hesitated for a fraction of a second, like a misfire but without any noise. As if it died for a split second.
Do you have an N52? It's 11367585425 but that's ONLY for the N52. Call a dealer - $145 on turner but I'm sure they can be had cheaper direct.
 
I'm in the UK, there is no noise when it hesitates, it's just like a little blip where the revs drop and the car judders

I had a rattle this morning which was new. It fluctuated with the revs, i was worried timing chain, but I turned the car off and restarted and it was gone! Think they are related???
 
No idea tbh. The diag process for VANOS is to swap and see if the fault moves, if it does, replace the faulty one. Cleaning didn't work for me so I did a replacement - this was at about 75k miles.
If you're content to try replacing VANOS to cure the issues then perhaps just buy one and see if the fault stops moving around. That may not work though so it's your call. If that stops the fault on one side then I'd then replace the other. There could always be more to it though.

Try a local dealer for the solenoid or Soper Lincoln to see who is cheapest - £80ish when I got mine.
 
Mine is a S54 with similar symtopms. Being an M might explain the more expensive parts :). Should also check if these symptoms are related to the big Z4M hesitation thread on the forum.

I'm in Belgium but my indy is on holidays this week. I'll reach out to him for a Solenoid quote.
 
Nice to hear I'm not the only one. The Rev drop is quite new and is only a spit second. With the code flipping between the two solenoids I am really reluctant to change them as I'm thinking it is something else
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom