VANOS Cam Bolts Apr 11-19, 2012

Excessive noise from the front of the S54 engine indicated to the dealer that I had the dreaded situation of loose VANOS cam bolts. Luckily, the repair was done before any permanent damage to the engine and my extended warranty covered almost everything. Whew!
MZ4-VanosCamBolts-001 My '06 M Roadster had 52K on the clock and had been trouble-free until April, 2012 when I took it into the dealer for some routine maintenance. The service...
1 My '06 M Roadster had 52K on the clock and had been trouble-free until April, 2012 when I took it into the dealer for some routine maintenance. The service…
MZ4-VanosCamBolts-002 View from the rear to the front of the engine, showing the back side of the VANOS cam gears. Left side is the intake VANOS and the right side is the exhaust...
2 View from the rear to the front of the engine, showing the back side of the VANOS cam gears. Left side is the intake VANOS and the right side is the exhaust…
MZ4-VanosCamBolts-006 So, here are the damaged intake cam bolts that were removed. You can see that one was completely sheared in two and the others were all in various stages of...
3 So, here are the damaged intake cam bolts that were removed. You can see that one was completely sheared in two and the others were all in various stages of…