Vanos questions

P

Palmer666

Member
Hi all

After all your brilliant help I have a new query. I have an 03 z4 3.0, which has done 54000 miles. I have started to ponder whether the vanos needs doing after speaking to someone who had problems with his. He said that it was a horrible job that is best avoided by amateurs. Does anyone know how much I should pay to have this done? Anyone know where in Essex does this and are reliable? I'm only nervous due to the car sitting for long periods.

Thanks for your patience
Regards


Alex
 
I've done it. It's not horrible job, but time consuming. And I'm pretty amateur with these things.
90 degree pliers are absolutely a must!

I read these threads;
http://www.z4-forum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=71687&start=0
http://www.z4-forum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=72609
 
Well tbh I thought the car hasn't done that many miles and has lived its life in the garage. Thought it might be a good safety precaution. Someone mentioned you get a tapping noise from it which I don't hear is there any other way to check it ?

Cheers jaq I'm just nervous as I quite like my car and my lack of expertise will really land me in trouble.

Cheers
 
A very basic explanation of the Vanos is that a piston within the Vanos unit, sealed by O rings, which engages the end of the cam by means of a spiral cut drive, is pushed forward by oil pressure. The further the piston is pushed forward the more the worm drive turns and advances the cam and therefore the timing. Hence the translation of VANOS (German-VA riable NO chenwellen S teuerung) as basically variable valve timing. The large o ring seals used by BMW are not the best specification and they harden and do not seal as well as they should. The replacement kit uses viton seals which are superior and sometimes quoted as never needing to be replaced again. Do you need to change at 54,000 miles? Well the sales blurb with new kits states that the original seals are starting to harden and leak by 20,000 miles. When the seals are badly hardened and leaking the car will just lack a little of the original 'get up and go' due to the affected Vanos pressures not advancing the cams as they should but, because this is a gradual loss, most owners are not that aware of it. I changed mine at 70,000 and noticed the difference when really pushing the car. The bottom line is that, if you do not change the seals, nothing much should happen, but your car may be just a little less than urgent when pushing the revs. I would think an indie should charge in the region of £300- £400 for the job.
 
Thanks for this. After speaking to the bloke who told me about it I never thought to ask the consequences of not changing it. He basically just said about how awkward it was to do.
 
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