Such a drama queen!

I coasted my car down a mountain road from over 2500 ft elevation to just
under 1300 ft elevation in 7 miles. I had suffered a cooling system failure,
and the tow truck charged extra to come up the hill, so I coasted down. No
vac assist to the steering or brakes, and no problems.

Sheesh!





"Bimmer328" > wrote in message
ups.com...
> But yes, that day I'll agree I took some time to switch between gears
> because there was traffic, sometimes I let my car roll in Neutral and
> then switch car according to the speed of the cars ahead of me... but
> regardless... my car should have never turned off on me like that. Once
> it happened on a turn, I almost climbed on top of a curve, but I
> managed to pull the steering all the way to the left to miss the curb
> by inches.
>
>
>
> Bimmer328 wrote:
>> Some clarifications. Steering did not lock, I guess it just lost power
>> assistance so felt very heavy. Also, the mechanic said he sent a
>> electric signal to the Vanos and the vanos would not reply implicating
>> that the vanos was inoperative. He said there was sludge-build-up in
>> the Vanos system
>>
>> Also, I did not turn the car off and I dont take much time to switch
>> gears, The car silents turns off between gears very quickly. Though it
>> does it rarely and has (so far) always turned back on, I just have to
>> power it off, turn it back on while the car is rolling on neutral and
>> then put it in the right gear so it does not choke.
>>
>> First I took it to the BMW and they diagnosed and told me it was the
>> Camshaft Position Sensor, whcih I paid them almost close to 400 dollars
>> for replacement, After it was done, the light did not go away. So I
>> took it to another mechanic, and he checked the error code and told me
>> that this code could go on because of many faults. So thats when he
>> went into the details and kept my car for about 4 hours and then called
>> me to tell me that the Vanos was inoperative in the car because of
>> sludge buildup. My engine had lots of oil sludge when I buoght it, so I
>> had to change oils a couple of times and then do an engine flush. After
>> that it drives very smooth, specially at higher RPM's, but it does not
>> pick up in the 1K to 3K RPM range. The mechanic told me that is another
>> indication of a bad Vanos as the Vanos controls the Mid and Low RPM
>> range in these cars.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Fred W wrote:
>> > Bimmer328 wrote:
>> > > Hey Guys,
>> > >
>> > > I just joined this group today, it seems to contain alot of useful
>> > > information.
>> >
>> > I hope you didn't pay too much in initiation fees!
>> >
>> > > My question is concerned with an 2000 E46 328ci. I would
>> > > like to ask if any member here has experienced a sudden, silent stall
>> > > while driving. It happened to me while I was driving on the
>> > > interstate,
>> > > my car while driving (its a 5spd) suddenly stalled when I was in
>> > > neutral and about to switch to 5th gear. My steering got locked, and
>> > > it
>> > > was extremely dangerous. Thank god I have a 5spd and my car did not
>> > > choke, It just silently shut down, the only way I could tell was when
>> > > I
>> > > looked in the dash and my engine and oil lights came on in red, so I
>> > > pressed the clutch, turned on the car while rolling on the interstate
>> > > at 65 mph! I got control back, took it to a mechanic and he told me
>> > > it
>> > > could be my Vanos Unit going out. Has anyones "Vanos" unit gone out
>> > > here or experienced the same issue, any information shared here will
>> > > be
>> > > highly appreciated.. Thank you.
>> >
>> > Go look for another mechanic. This one doesn't even know what the
>> > VANOS
>> > does. It is merely a means of mechanically advancing the valve timing.
>> > It would *never* cause the engine to stall, and especially not while
>> > the engine was still in gear.
>> >
>> > It sounds like you had a temporary disconnection of an electrical
>> > signal. May a faulty ground connection somewhere or something like
>> > that. Not a valve timing issue.
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > -Fred W
>