Hello all,

Several months back I bought an 08 Clubman base model automatic with 85k on the clock. Car was picked up cheap, needing work.

It has an odd issue that i (and prior mechanics) haven’t been able to resolve.

It will start right up and run fine / smoothly. It has a stuck high commanded value from the vanos, from the moment it starts.

My scantool shows that the vanos actuator motor can be commanded from 25 degrees to a max of 179 degrees based on command. When the car is key on engine off, commanded and actual vanos values will match at 50 degrees. The second the engine is started, the commanded value jumps to over 6000 and actual maxes out at 179. 😳

Engine is is lacking power and has occasional misfires (likely from the vanos not being where it should). It also occasionally has a second or two throttle delay from a dead stop in drive. Not sure if that is related.

Car has only once thrown a check engine light for misfire codes but even then often does not, never any other codes.

It has had had a lot of service at the dealer, including timing chains at 40k and such.

I had a second mini that runs/drives as it should (2007 base coupe) with the same engine and swapped over several components trying to resolve the insanely high vanos set point with no change.

Ive swapped out known good vanos actuators, eccentric shaft sensor, and also throttle body, mass air flow, and foot pedal sensors (assumed issue was throttle response and not vanos at the beginning)

Car has even compression, new spark plugs, valve cover gasket, battery, fresh synthetic oil change. and vacuum pump done.

im more or less at a loss, and not sure where to look next. I’ve worked on many bmws in the past but minis are still new territory to me.

My apologies for the long rant, but it’s been sitting for months now and I really need to figure out what to do next. Have I missed anything that controls the vanos demand?

Any info or recommendations will will be very much appreciated.

Thanks 😁

 

I thought Vanos only had two states, activate or deactivated?
https://www.bmwn54tuners.com/diagnos...-vanos-system/