Rough idle only when warm - timing chain changed recently

user1168934

I have recently bought a 318i 2006 which just had a timing chain replacement by the previous owner. The car starts fine and drives lovely when cold but after a couple of minutes when engines gets a bit warm the idle becomes erratic. It drives fine but idle gets rough, the car starts shaking as if it is going to cut out (and sometimes it actually does). Sometimes when this happens it seems that the car tries to adjust by increasing the revs to 1500+. It also keeps going into limp mode. A couple of days ago on the highway the limpmode light came on and the car's speed was reduced. The check engine light came on too.

I have bought the OBD bluetooth connector and the error codes are P1050, P1062 and P111a. I also took some screenshots of the data today when my car was rough idling and I noticed the timing was fluctuating a lot when the car was rough idling.

Is this a timing issue? Any ideas how to fix it?
Any other readings I can gather which might help?
Please help me if you can.

thescouselander

Bit of an educated guess but I'd suggest looking at the MAF (air flow) sensor. Easy to test - unplug it and see if the problem goes away. If it does then that's the culprit.

Also check the camshaft position sensor - might just be that it's not plugged in properly if it was disconnected during the timing chain work.

facade

Type p1050 into google.

Loads of pages on it, something to do with the variable cam timing system.

Plenty of things to check that don't cost anything

e.g. http://www.bmwforums.info/bmw-3-series-forum/1424-limp-mode.html

user1168934

Thanks guys I will try the MAF sensor thing over the weekend and will go through the post mentioned above and try those too (the page is not loading correctly for some reason right now).

I did do a fair bit of googling but generally the advice was to throw parts at it until the problem goes away which would be very costly for me.

I will post an update after I have done the checks. In the mean time please let me know if you have any other ideas.

thescouselander

The link facade posted has some good advice. On some engines BMW controls the throttle by altering valve lift rather than using a butterfly valve. There is a servo motor associated with this mechanism so giving it a few gaps might help if there's a connection breaking down.

angrycrow

if its a BMW valvetronic engine they have two solenoids that control the cam timing advance which can fail causing timing issues. Mechanically they are very easy to change, undo one bolt disconnect plug and withdraw from the engine retrieving the o ring but I suspect you have already seen this info on another site you posted on (pelican).

user1168934

I am trying to buy compressed air duster to clean the vanos solenoid. There is one in Wilko but it says its highly flammable. Is it ok to use for cleaning solenoid?

Here is the link in case:
http://www.wilko.com/computer-cleaning-kits/fellows-air-duster-spray-350ml/invt/0332276

facade

That is just a can of liquid butane, as used in lighters. Doubt if it will hurt anything, but use it outside.

reddwarf2002

Just changed a Vanos timing solenoid valve on a Peugeot 308 for a friend (it has a BMW engine).

It had the fault codes P1015, P1062, P1067. It didn't have the problems at idle as the OP but from all the searching I had done previously the solenoid seemed to be a very common issue.

tedted

what 308 is that then?

facade

Post 2007 I'd have thought.

BMW had some input into the valvegear (which goes wrong) and let peugeot design the rest of the engine.

So BMW and Peugeot used the same engine till about 2016.