i have a 2012 countryman all4 with 75k miles. over the years, the check engine light has come on and off. i always blamed it on the bad gas and figured the car was finicky. recently, the check engine light came on and stayed on. the car went into low power mode. then, one day it went from low power mode to no power mode. it was like it was running on only 3 cylinders. i thought maybe spark plugs. i was out of town when this happened and limped it home. it could get to 75 mph going downhill. mountain passes was more like 30 mph tops. mechanic said it was a vanos problem. sounded like a 'muffler belt' diagnosis to me but i trusted him and paid $1k for the fix. receipt says 'camshaft adjuster' for parts and 'remove and replace timing chain sprockets' for labor. when i retrieve the car from the shop, immediately the check engine light came back on. i took the car back. he said it needed new spark plugs and coils. did i get taken for ride on this vanos fix? was it just spark plugs the whole time? how to know? what to do? thanks.

 

Bad on you for ignoring check engine lights. Without knowing the codes that precipitated the Vanos repair hard to say. Did he give you the old parts? Did you ask why he did what he did? For the future buy yourself an OBDII code reader and go to mechanic with all the info in your head so you can separate out the BS from reality.

Find a different shop if you don't get good answers.

 

yes, bad on me. in my defense, the light was on and off regularly and i had been told previously it was related to gas so i just chalked it up to that thereafter. still, bad on me. i should have had codes read every oil change. he did not give me old parts. i am far from a mechanic so i hesitate to try to re-explain what he told me. as i recall, he explained that where camshaft connects to timing chain sprocket it was stuck so could not rotate properly.

 

I wish I was an expert on this stuff, but I read this thread recently in which an owner had purchased a car with problems in resolved them, in part, with fixes to the VANOS stuff and crank position sensor.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...se-issues.html

He described the symptoms pretty well, maybe you can find some similarities in what is described there which would help you connect the work that was done to your car.

Dirk

 

i know this cannot be undone, but i would never pay 1k to a mechanic to replaced things on my car unless it is heavy and takes more than a day. one vanos is right in the front takes 10 minutes to change, and other is behind the intake and can take upto 30 minutes to replace...anywho, was the issue fixed?