[GEP77]

After 17000 miles of pretty faultless motoring the drivetrain warning light came on during my journey to work yesterday.

There was no obvious loss of performance, although I don't tend to stretch the car on the commute anyway. The warning stayed on for my journey home.

Yesterday evening I checked the fault codes for the car with Carly and found that it appears to be a Vanos fault

So this morning I contacted my local dealer and after the preliminaries said that while they could look at the car tomorrow I couldn't have a loan car for another 3 weeks. So they suggested that I contact BMW assist.

BMW assist duly contacted and I explained the fault, they contacted the person in the dealership as well and as of now I'm currently awaiting someone to come out to it. Now to watch this space.

[chris-c]

Hope they get this sorted quickly for you. From my experience and reading the assist documents its a case of

1) Call assist
2) Get taken to a garage
3) Get taken home
4) Get a courtesy car for TWO days
5) Garage either fixes the problem or pays for the extension on the courtesy car.

If it is vanos that's got to be a warranty claim so the garage will sort you out with extending the courtesy car.

If it isn't vanos / warranty the garage can say "tough luck, no courtesy car for you"

[Russbmw]

It's all covered by warranty anyway, right?

[Ronstein]

Have to say, my experience of using Assist was excellent. Had a puncture in the 335D GT which has 100 load rated tyres instead of the standard 3 series 96 load rating and Continental didn't have any in the UK or Europe, so BMW supplied me with a car for a week until the new tyre came of the production line and was flown to the UK!!

[GEP77]

Car is less than a year old so yes it will be warranty. The whole process is a bit awkward, have to deal with assist, enterprise and garage.

As the car is drive-able (for now at least anyway) I've elected to take it into the dealership and pick up the hire car from there. That way I can also speak to service face to face as well - which from experience is always beneficial compared to talking on the phone.

[GEP77]

Well car is now in the work shop. Had a health check video sent to me which just told me the brakes and tyres were fine - which I already knew anyway.

The enterprise rental car has turned out to be an F11 520d. It drives well enough but squeaks and rattles quite a bit and the passenger side wing mirror electrics don't work either. So not altogether great. It also smells of wet dog which isn't particularly nice.

Just waiting to hear back now as to what the diagnosis on mine is.

[JNW1]

Thought BMW had got over their problems with vanos failures years ago but perhaps not?

I know issues were quite common with the E36 M3 and I actually had to have the one replaced on my E46 M3. However, vanos problems were supposedly rare by then and BMW actually sent one of their engineers to inspect my car to make sure the dealer hadn't misdiagnosed the fault - they hadn't and BMW approved a replacement under warranty without quibble.

I'm sure you'll get it sorted quickly but it will be interesting to know whether a potential vanos failure is indeed the problem....

[GEP77]

Just got off the phone to the dealer. Apparently it is actually an EGR valve fault and they've seen it a few times previously on x40i engines. The work should be done tomorrow so all being well will get the car back Friday.

[chris-c]

They thought my problem was due to an egr fault. Apparently they leak. Not too sure about it but hopefully that'll be a nice quick fix

[Daftasabrush]

Rather EGR over VANOS, you have to drop the engine to get to VANOS on the 40is.

[GEP77]

Originally Posted by Daftasabrush

Rather EGR over VANOS, you have to drop the engine to get to VANOS on the 40is.

Fingers crossed it is just the EGR, then again that's what the warranty is for.

On a side note as I was leaving the dealer I spotted a Snapper Rocks M5 outside. Me want!

[330Stevie]

Egr coolant leak is very very common

[dbramley]

That fault message is nearly always EGR if you search on here. I’ve had the same in my X3.

[GEP77]

Originally Posted by dbramley

That fault message is nearly always EGR if you search on here. I’ve had the same in my X3.

Well apparently the valve has been replaced but I've not yet received the details of the work carried out. However car is now fault free which is nice.

The dealership performed flawlessly, the turnaround of my car was very quick. BMW assist was ok, but let down enormously by Enterprise who seemed to be quite disorganised. The fact that they supplied a car with obvious faults was also disappointing.