VANOS UNIT Once and For All................

[v8 mark]

With the youngest vehicles being 6 years old the E36 has fallen out of BMW's 3 yr warranty scheme, subsequently VANOS units will not be replaced under the terms and conditions that applied 3 years ago. Although there was no safety recall, BMW instigated a 'Quality enhancement' scheme which applies to E36's built from Oct 1995 to Oct 1999. The open ended scheme covers full warranty replacement of the vanos unit and all relevant E36's will have had their unit's replaced unless they prematurely dropped out of the dealer network. If the car was checked in for a service the chassis number would have been taken automatically and logged into BMW's viewdata system, which would inform the Technician of any outstanding issues on that particular car. It's unlikely that many car's unit's have been missed but those who have slipped through the net will be replaced by BMW.
AS FOR THE FAULT ITSELF, ACCORDING TO TECHNICIANS THE PROBLEM STEMS FROM OIL FILTER CLOGGING UP AND STARVING VANOS UNIT OF LUBRICATION AND EVENTUALLY CAUSING FAILURE......