What does vanos rattle sound like?
 

2001 3.0 x5 170k

Changed oil just now and was letting car run to burn off the oil I spilled and heard this light random rattle. It's coming from top of engine but I can't honestly tell where. Kinda a weird not constant rattle and as engine ran it got less and less but didn't go away completely. Can't hear it really with hood down. I was like wtf is that? But then remembered hearing people talking about vanos rattles and such so I am curious.

I will check YouTube in a little while to see if there are any videos but first I need to rebuild my fence gate so figured I would post first to hopefully get some ideas.

From my understanding it sounds like 50% muted diesel or better yet a vw tfsi engine.

I'm actually beginning to wonder if its the DISA valve starting to go out.

theres a video of Vanos rattle on Youtube - sounds like marbles in a can if I recall correctly - user "bimmer zeit" posted it and his name on here is richardb

followed the video I found in this thread:

http://www.xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-foru...ise-video.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRhD...BoZOPEauRHskow

its definitely the DISA valve. mine is not nearly as loud as in the video but the noise completely goes away/comes back with the valve hooked up vs not hooked up.

just ordered the G.A.S. kit. wondering if it would affect drive-ability to just drive around with the valve unhooked until the kit gets here?

I guess its good that I got 170k out of the valve lol.

That's pretty good - and now that you can rebuild it with the G.A.S. kit (I did mine at 80k miles) the valve should outlast the car -

It might affect torque delivery I think but I do think you should be able to drive with it unhooked -

Sounds like a Ford Diesel

Fixed the disa valve this morning. It was freewheeling around in the housing. While I was taking it apart the pin fell out on the ground to god knows where. Took about 15 minutes to do everything. Not that bad actually. Kinda surprising how much more peppy it is on the low end lol. I think the valve was responsible not only for the idle ticking but also for a goofy startup noise that's now gone.

Good times.