Did a search already....now looking for most recent discussions/comments....

My 07 MCS has been at the dealer now for 3 1/2 weeks. Originally, it was because of the much talked about dreaded cold start issues; long story/short, they changed the cam chain tensioner, but were not satisfied due to irregular ticking/tapping noises that remained. They claimed nothing untoward was showing up in the diagnostics, have talked to BMW Canada about it, have now ordered "from Germany" a vanos solenoid, which will take another two weeks....

So, am I getting the run around? What's the latest word on this issue? Yes, I did read the article on Motoring File about it. I've been driving their courtesy car all this time, and they've no problems at all with that...so I'm thinking it's more major than they let on.

 

I only know that the VANOS is one of the components that is supposed to be swapped out (along with a bunch of other stuff) to mitigate the cold start rattle. Not sure how the solenoid factors into the equation.

Reference is Reply #255 of 30 March in this forum:

http://www.michiganmini.org/forum/in...topic=3115.255

Hope you have success getting this resolved.

 

Yeah, supposedly an earlier fix was to change out one of the tensioners and if that doesn't work to change out everything, including the VANOS.

 

Thanks you guys....these are helpful. I'll check back with the dealer to see what they say about a complete vanos replacement instead of tinkering (and wasting time ordering) with one part at a time.

 

MY Clubman is in shop, now, Was misfiring at idle. Diagnosis is first to replace the VANOS solenoid, and if it still throws the error/CEL code from the VANOs unit, then to replace the entire assembly. BTW, I am at 45k and 7 days past the warranty expration date....I anticipate BMW/MINI Corporate to work with me on this one??, as I just had the timing chain assembly replaced less than 3 months ago, under warranty. Would the VANOs failure be tied to the timing chain replacement in anyway?

As always, love the car. Just expect a little better reliability of the power train.

The VANOs solenoid, is apparently stocked in the CA MINI PDC, possibly alluding to some known failures of this part?

Any notes on VANOs unit failure and repair, would be appreciated.

 

Quick update...Dealer replaced VANOS solenoid, then ran a full test of VANOS sytem, and cleared all misfire faults. The car seems to run very well now. MINI Corporate covered the repairs 100%; Thank you MINI! I was 7 days out of warranty exp. date and at 45k miles when the VANOS solenoid failed. Amazing how much of a problem one little solenoid creates, when it fails.

I plan on keeping this MINI for another 2 years, and 35k or more miles. Aside from a waterpump in the future I expect basic maintainence only from here forward.