[n00b17]

Hoping someone here can help!!

2011 BMW X3 35i

Oil filter housing was leaking on to the accessory belt and caused it to slip off and got caught behind the pulley, initially no other damage was detected till after the repair. Oil filter housing was replaced all oil cleaned up and new belt was installed. when engine fired up it was running rough on idle and registered some faults in the system. Further inspection revealed that the crank seal was damaged from the belt when it caught behind the crank pulley, so the crank seal was replaced. After the crank seal replacement DME still had VANOS faults, removed VANOS solenoids and they were covered in sludge so decided to replace both of them with new BMW part. Solenoid replacement still not resolve VANOS faults and decided to pull valve cover off for further inspection. under the valve cover there were some pieces of the belt found on cam sprockets which were pulled up by the chain, this meant there could be more and decided to remove the oil pan to have a look.

Oil pan had a large amount of shredded belt pieces sitting and even more stuck up in the chain guide along with a broken piece of the guide. All this mess was cleaned up, new chain guide was installed and oil pick up was cleaned up and while doing that also replace both VANOS units. So far all visibly damaged parted are replaced: Chain guides, both VANOS solenoids and Units and oil pick up cleaned up, used a timing tool to set timing. After going through all this the X3 still has random camshaft and vans related faults.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

[Wgosma]

Originally Posted by n00b17

Hoping someone here can help!!

2011 BMW X3 35i

Oil filter housing was leaking on to the accessory belt and caused it to slip off and got caught behind the pulley, initially no other damage was detected till after the repair. Oil filter housing was replaced all oil cleaned up and new belt was installed. when engine fired up it was running rough on idle and registered some faults in the system. Further inspection revealed that the crank seal was damaged from the belt when it caught behind the crank pulley, so the crank seal was replaced. After the crank seal replacement DME still had VANOS faults, removed VANOS solenoids and they were covered in sludge so decided to replace both of them with new BMW part. Solenoid replacement still not resolve VANOS faults and decided to pull valve cover off for further inspection. under the valve cover there were some pieces of the belt found on cam sprockets which were pulled up by the chain, this meant there could be more and decided to remove the oil pan to have a look.

Oil pan had a large amount of shredded belt pieces sitting and even more stuck up in the chain guide along with a broken piece of the guide. All this mess was cleaned up, new chain guide was installed and oil pick up was cleaned up and while doing that also replace both VANOS units. So far all visibly damaged parted are replaced: Chain guides, both VANOS solenoids and Units and oil pick up cleaned up, used a timing tool to set timing. After going through all this the X3 still has random camshaft and vans related faults.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

What a nightmare...I've heard of this broken belt thing happening on this motor, etc.

I'm not an expert by any means, but I did some VANOS work on my old E39 (M52 motor). One thought is that some of the shredded belt material has made it's way via the oil into the VANOS system/channels/flow path - there are close tolerances in the fluid path there and I would think any particulate carried in the car's oil that gets in there would potentially cause small (or maybe) large hiccups in the VANOS operation.

Aside disassembly, How one would clean/flush that part of the system is a bit beyond me, but I would think contaminated oil is very possible cause.

Now beyond that, your motor also has variable valve lift, I think...."Valvetronic", BMW's variable lift system. I'm not familiar with it but there might be something amis there also; tho if you're only getting VANOS related fault codes I may be all wet on that thought.

You might want to post on the 3-Series forums - I'm sort of guessing the E90 cars had this motor. maybe even the E60 5-Series cars might be better. Maybe search there for related threads - I've seen posting on the E60 board few years ago on this (belt sucked in) exact problem; I was on the Bimmerfest Forums but there is likely mention in this boards E60 forum. Take a look here https://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1394420

Best of luck/Bill

VANOS operation:

more VANOS:

[najnad]

That sucks, I had the same belt slip off due to the oil filter housing leaking, but I guess I got lucky that it didnt do other damage. I am taking the X3 in next week for some maintenance and will have them check the crank seal for damage.

Assuming the crank seal is not damaged, I should be in the clear?

[02420X3]

I had my seeping oil filter housing gasket and the splashed-on belt replaced before things went that far bad. Whatever the cost was, it was apparently worth it.