E46 M3 - Preventative Maintenance VANOS

AmDaMan

AmDaMan

AmDaMan

Soldato
Joined
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Posts
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Location
Wellington, NZ
Hi,

I've just put a deposit down on an E46 M3 after waiting for a decent one to turn up in the NZ market. It's got FBSH and the seller is putting it through its inspection II as part of the deal. The SMG pump was changed 10,000kms ago so that's sweet - the only worry now is the VANOS, so i'm looking at getting some preventative maintenance sorted out while the engine is in bits. My understanding is that the parts to change will be;

Vanos bolts + loctite
Biesian seal kit
Exhaust hub / tab
Vanos filter

All the above are relatively cheap from what I can see. Is there anything else i've missed though?

Any help appreciated.

Cheers
 
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Thats near enough it, most of it is mtax and phear.

If you really want to go nuts you can change inner seals like i did but that wont be as major as changing the sollenoid seals
 
Yeah, maybe a bit easier to sell on next year too. I wish they'd just do the complete kit as a bundle though. Dr Vanos does the complete unit but not the exhaust hub or bolts as part of it!

Should put my mind at ease once it's done.
 
AmDaMan said:
Hi,

I've just put a deposit down on an E46 M3 after waiting for a decent one to turn up in the NZ market. It's got FBSH and the seller is putting it through its inspection II as part of the deal. The SMG pump was changed 10,000kms ago so that's sweet - the only worry now is the VANOS, so i'm looking at getting some preventative maintenance sorted out while the engine is in bits. My understanding is that the parts to change will be;

Vanos bolts + loctite
Biesian seal kit
Exhaust hub / tab
Vanos filter

All the above are relatively cheap from what I can see. Is there anything else i've missed though?

Any help appreciated.

Cheers
Click to expand...

Get the seller to do the camshaft and hub vanos bolts as they are easy to do whilst car is being serviced and valves done, only adds 1-2hr labour then. Otherwise your also gonna need new gasket etc and will take longer.

Had mine done last week as part of a service. :)
 
Is that the same as the Vanos sprocket bolts that sometimes come loose? The seller has paid BMW to do the inspection but they will delay the service until the parts come if I wish.

Why didn't you do the exhaust hub?
 
AmDaMan said:
Is that the same as the Vanos sprocket bolts that sometimes come loose? The seller has paid BMW to do the inspection but they will delay the service until the parts come if I wish.

Why didn't you do the exhaust hub?
Click to expand...

Was not aware of an exhaust / hub.
Ask for the vanos bolts be changed and invoice states camshaft and hub bolts done, so maybe ehxaut hub?
 
If I was doing Vanos again I'd buy every single bolt that's part of the system as I managed to shear a good few despite using the correct torque wrench. They aren't expensive so it's worth doing
 
Update:

Got the car back. The car feels a heck of a lot better at lover revs it's also less noisy. The mechanic doing the work was also pretty surprised. That was also the first time he has ever changed those parts so it was 5 hours labour on top of the inspection 2 cost haha.

So I ended up changing :

Sprocket bolts OEM with loctite
Vanos oil pump disc with a modified one
Sealing plate seals
Seal kit for vanos unit

All from Biesian apart from the bolts which were from Dr Vanos. Hopefully he did it right and it lasts a long time. It felt good getting back in it... However an e60 M5 has popped up on my radar and I'm tempted :p

jiytrk.jpg
 
Yep, pretty much. You can get custom spacing etc. but I think the standard format is 6 characters, fixed size and no spacing.. It's very easy to get a good custom plate too as there is so much availability.
 
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