M5 Vanos and Thermostate

[S600VXR]

Bought the M5 today and one thing that does need doing is the thermostate as the engine did not get up to temperature properly during a 25minute test drive. Oil temp went just past the line between 50 and 100 and all apart from the last orange and the red lights on the rev counter went out. Drove very well and reved to 6.5 perfectly so seems ok. How difficult is it to change the thermostate then???

Also whats the cost of renewing the vanos as this one was slightly noisey after the drive although I am being very critical as its still quieter than my SC Monaro engine!

Will flush the engine through a few times with fresh oil if only to settle my mind thats its all clean inside as well.

Hopefully get it next weekend.

[Neil.D]

The temp gague will sit at about the 11 o'clock mark in all but summer and town driving. It you wanted to change the thermostat its not a big job and can be done if youre handy with a spanner.
The last orange light should stay on and for a vanos its about 6k.

Neil.D

[S600VXR]

Neil.D said:

The temp gague will sit at about the 11 o'clock mark in all but summer and town driving. It you wanted to change the thermostat its not a big job and can be done if youre handy with a spanner.
The last orange light should stay on and for a vanos its about 6k.

Neil.D

6k... as in thousand pounds... I cant beleive that. F**k me I could revert to being a mechainest again and make a bloody setup for less!

Will replace the thermostate myself as quite handy still... just lazy now and able to pay people to do the grease monkey work... when I find a mechanic who is any good that is.

[dazren]

Depending on the oil, these engines can run quite cool under light load driving. My Feb 01 built car ran at a higher temp on the Castrol TWS 10W60 oil than the Castrol SLX the garage has been using recently (as my engine was built after March 2000 they've advised using SLX). As mentioned the lights you saw on the rev counter are normal.

Be aware there is both water and oil temperature gauges. It's good practice to wait till the oil gauge is up to temp before gunning it. Indeed with the E60 M5 the water temp gauge was dropped leaving just the oil temp gauge.

As for one vanos making more noise than the other, they all make a bit of noise. My car has one side making a bit more noise than the other so I had it checked by my main dealer, they said it's running fine, the noise is nothing to worry about.

As for cost of replacement Vanos, Neil is spot on at dealers quoting £6k. Although this is made up of £3k per cylinder bank. It's not normal for both to go at the same time. I've seen discussion of a few independents now having the capability of doing the job for £2k per side. It is a very specialist job involving specialist equipment due to the high pressure the oil is under in the vanos and quite labour intensive at about 30ish man hours.

Edited by dazren on Saturday 11th April 13:53

[S600VXR]

The one I am getting makes a slight noise both sides although TBH it could just be me being parinoid although I dont know why as if it needs fixing it will just get fixed as not looking to run it on a shoe string. IF the last orange light and the red lights stay on on the tacho then there is nothing wrong with the thermostate by the sounds of it... Why do they stay on though, Id have thought they flash up as you rev it out?

[dazren]

No idea why they stay on. Perhaps to draw your attention to the change up point when glancing briefly at the tacho?

[S600VXR]

Looks like I only have to swap all the fluids out then by the sounds of it as could not fault anything else on the car - new tyres/recent brakes etc etc. Done nearly 6k on the current oil so well past the time to change it.

In defence of my poor Ro though the M is very smooth and far better built but the Ro is sooooo much faster, just its a little violent at times.

[Neil.D]

If your engine sounds something like this,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDy2ikMsLLI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEOQELIKf9Q&fea...

then that is normal. They do sound rubbish at tickover, it is explained here,

http://www.drvanos.com/index.php?option=com_conten...

10W 60 oil is quite thick and can make the oil quicker to heat up and overall running temps can be higher because of it.

Before you change the thermostat, pull off the water temp sender and give it a clean with some electrical contact cleaner. Mine went up after I did. It is located here.

[S600VXR]

F**k me its alot quieter than either of those links!! Jezz people dont drive cars making that much noise do they!

[Neil.D]

Its only at tickover so its no worry. You cant hear it from inside anyway.

[Welshbeef]

S6000VXR - given that this car has fulll Main dealer S/H up to 104k june ish last year and now your at 110k I would personally get the next stamp in the book BMW - even though I'd hate doing so to me given that intensive history with BMW it would seem bonkers not to do the decent thing now & let them change your fluids.

[S600VXR]

Welshbeef said:

S6000VXR - given that this car has fulll Main dealer S/H up to 104k june ish last year and now your at 110k I would personally get the next stamp in the book BMW - even though I'd hate doing so to me given that intensive history with BMW it would seem bonkers not to do the decent thing now & let them change your fluids.

I know what your saying but I will buy all the bits I need and do it myself making sure I keep all the receipts attached to a spreedsheet I normally put together. Its not BMW history but it will be very detailed as I tend to do this with all my cars as I service them alot more than the dealers say to. Im also going to do all the bushes and rear ARB clamps just to make sure its all ok.
I also hate going into dealers as alot (not all!) of the mechanics just dont car about your car like I do and when your paying silly prices per hour it bl**dy annoys me. Mind you I might get Monkfish Performance to do the work yet as they treat my Monaro very well and respect customers cars.

[gavm5]

Neil.D said:

Before you change the thermostat, pull off the water temp sender and give it a clean with some electrical contact cleaner. Mine went up after I did. It is located here.

Just remember that by doing this it will leave a "fault" in the ecu memory if the engine is running, not enough to bring on the check engine light but a fault nonetheless - believe me, I have done it and then plugged in my peake code reader out of curiosity to see "temperature sensor implausible"

[S600VXR]

From chatting on here it sounds like the car I am getting is fine, the tacho lights stayin on threw me as didnt want to rev it out whiulst they were illuminated still but seems they are suppose to stay on. As such I wont be touching the thermostate for now. Just gonna change all fluids and polybush most everything.