Who has actually suffered a Vanos failure on E36 M3 EVO?

I'd be doing a Google search for "Dr Vanos" if I were you...

Yours isn't Estoril Blue, by any chance?

Vanos problem sorted.

One of the exhaust solenoids had a dry solder joint on the contact and over time had burned out and broken off. Ive had new ones put in with new gasket, filter and bolts. evos runnning sweet as a nut now.

Ive inspected the damaged joint on the solenoid and bench tested them, they both work fine. It could easily be repaired and soldered with a good joint.. will prob keep it as spare.

This is the garage that did the work, they are friendly reasonable and know the e36 evo vanos inside out:

R.G Lewis
Unit 1, Harthill Park, Harthill Lane, Harthill, Chester, Cheshire CH3 9LQ
Tel: 01829 782663

In response to DanB99's question firstly I realise that I made a mistake in the bolt sizes, they are M5 not M6, M6 is what BMW should have used. This makes the stress in each bolt approx 15 kgf/mm2 instead of approx 11 kgf/mm2 as I previously said. I realised this when I checked my Vanos when the idle went really lumpy recently but found it was the cap missing from the fuel breather hose tee that is below the inlet manifold. I calculated the stress simply by force (oil pressure) x area (sealing OD of the solenoid x 2 solenoids) divided by the area of the 4 bolts. Note that the effective diameter of each bolt is less than the thread size due to the undercut of the thread, from memory it was about 0.85 of the thread size. My bolts have 8.8 written on them but you can get higher tensile strength bolts of 9.8, 10.9 and 12.9, I think there is an 11 as well. The first digit is the ultimate tensile strength/10 and the second digit what percentage of this the yield strength i.e a 10.9 bolt has a UTS of 100 kgf/mm2 and a yield stress of 90 kgf/mm2.

Rupe

I have my car for sale & I never noticed this noise before(Honestly dumb I know but true all the same) so these two lads came around & they knew there M3 cars or so it seemed they pointed out that the car had a rattle & that it was the Vanos !!

OMG I thought bloody typical ,go to sell the car & this happens sods law i thought feeling very sorry for myself indeed. So I discussed it with a friend & as he is a mechanic City & Guilds etc I let him see it, he came back with the car & basically said the two "M3" enthusiasts need to learn a few things before they pass silly comments, I asked why is that ? He told me that the vanos controls the valve timing, but this noise disappears when you press the clutch down & reappears if you let it up again but only when the car is warm & at idle or just above that . I decided to let BMW check it over as Ido not want any problems with the car, so they had it for a few hours , the conclusion is that it is not the vanos but it has been fitted with a solid flywheel & this cause's "Chatter", also they said it is quite normal but if it bothers me they can fit a new dual mass flywheel to cure it. Since then I have read up on this (hence this post) & it does not seem to be worth the expense as it is saying in this thread on the M5 Board here
http://eiriyeim.notlong.com
So this Gear chatter is normal but more so if you fit a solid flywheel?!

I've had the rough idle-thing on my E36 Evo since i bought it and renewing just about everything short of the vanos hasnt cured it. However, i am launching into fixing this now and turns out i had an intermittent connection due to a broken wire in the exhaust solenoid (broke just as it exits the moulded plug). Fixed that but still have the same problem.

Long-story-short turned out that the broken wire must have somehow shorted/spiked and used the DME mainboard as a fuse and burnt the vanous exhaust retard solenoid tracks out! I have repaired these but it now looks like the transistor that drives the exhaust solenoids in the DME is also dead. Have ordered a new transistor but its not here yet so i cant say if its all fixed yet, work continues......

Looking at the results of the poll, perhaps not the major issue it has been made into by scaremongering? Although my e36EVO's moved on now, I remember bricking it about the VANOS. When I picked the car up, there was a slightly unnerving rattle when the hood was up but there was nothing at all wrong with the power delivery. First thing I did was take it to a "mate of a mate" who was trained at BMW. An immediate diagnosis of VANOS failure was a worry. Speaking with the Indy garageman, who tested the VANOS unit using the diagnostic port in the engine bay with the BMW readout machine whilst I watched as soon as the "mate" had diagnosed a failure, he reported that the diagnostics showed no problems at all. The rattle persisted, however. About three months before I sold her on, I had the big service (the ones where shim work may well be needed). Said Indy was shocked at the state of the water pump and the fan attached close to it. He replaced the water pump (I'm led to believe that this is a bit of a job given its siting in the engine bay - but bear in mind I'm no mechanic) and the dreaded rattle had completely dissappeared!!

Smoke and mirrors comes to mind - a useful way to get a dumb seller to accept less for the car but the poll shows the proportion of total VANOS failures are relatively small. Seal wear/failure has got to be expected surely. Mine had never had the VANOS changed, I bought it at about 60k and sold at 80k ish (i.e. pretty much when you'd be most worried). And avoided the depreciation hit associated with e46M3s!

Just accept that everyone says there's a massive problem but in reality you'll be unlucky to suffer a catastrophic failure on these types of car in my personal experience. I realise that I have little experience (i.e. owned 1, failed 0) but I say all of this as someone who went through the worries associated with having a BM technician tell you it's definitely failed.

I'd also recommend my Indy near York if anyone's looking!

Stevo

ive had 5 m3's from a e30 evo sport (i know they dont have one) through and never had a problem ever. have an e39 m5 now and still no prooblems.

Hi all,

I have a 1997 M3 Evolution convertible.

ABout 4 months ago I sheared 2 bolts on the solenoid exhaust cover dumping about 2 liters of oil over the road. Fortunately my car was just serviced and oil level was at the top.

What I find interesting is that the bolts were only replaced 2 years ago by the previous owner.

I noticed that the back of the solenoid covers were showing some sign of skewing which I can only assume was putting uneven pressure of the bolts.

I popped the solenoids out and found that one of the exhaust 'noids was shattered. The front had cracked and the seal had moved.

Ive just put in an order for new solenoids circa £250 for the exhaust and I have also purchased this kit from Iridium engineering.

http://www.iridiumengineering.co.uk/vanos.htm

The bolts look to be be very well made and polished (all good) plus the up-rated seals hopefully mean I will never have to think about my Vanos again.

Fingers crossed.

EDIT:
1 more thing, always keep spare bolts and a liter or two of oil with you.