Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Aero 8, 2012< Plus 8, SuperSports, Coupe & Aeromax Engine Management Warning Light

Started up my 2013 Plus 8 yesterday and the engine management light illuminated.
Checked oil and water etc and all okay. Following a trip to the garage and a diagnostic check was told needed a new VANOS.
Has anyone else had similar problem as been told that it is common with the BMW V8 engine.
Car well serviced and has only done 17000 miles having bought new.
Job sounds expensive and possible engine out to fix. Any help advice please.

What garage did you take it to ?

The engine mgmt light (EML) is a common sight on the Aero dashboard. It can be triggered by a lot of things. If yo uhave not run the car for a while and the fuel is a bit rough then it will qiote possibly trigger the emissions gubbins. A full tank of premium, a heavy right foot so it all heats through well. Switch off and leave it. Do the same again and next time it should go off. Getting the engine warm given the light weight, power and buy roads can cause this. I caution this if you have been told there IS a fault in case it makes it worse. If you are parking up for winter then drop some Sta-bil (Keeps petrol more balanced over winter layup) in it to help with this.

It is quite common to find the Mass Airflow Sensor becomes a bit iffy over time. This is known for triggering the EML and is common on BMW as well as Morgans with this engine. It is not a big part but it does require some effort to get to and fit as I understand it. Example- do not buy this one as I am not an engineer and might have guessed the wrong one!

VANOS is the camshaft system. The Plus8 has the BMW 4.8L V8 engine with "double VANOS" meaning that as the revs rise it adjusts the camshaft timing. It uses oil pressure and a computer to adjust the opening and duration of the inlet and exhaust camshafts (hence double) to raise the power output. It is why you should get a little more growl as it goes past 4000 rpm under an open throttle. If you are driving and open the throttle to accelerate can you feel it "pick up" the strength of the cceleration as it goes past 3750-4000 rpm which is when the vario stuff should kick in and give you a more aggressive cam profile. Doing it on a small throttle angle will probably not provoke it, it needs to be given some welly. If you are not feeling any change it might be that you have an issue with the variocam engineering which is what underpins the "VANOS" marketing term.

I believe that there is an oil feed collector in the sump that sucks up the oil to drive the pressure that pushes the cambits around. In the past I was told that if you bash the sump (easily done on the low mounted 4.8) it can block the input to the oil collector and then the mechanism can suffer as a result. This means a top end rebuild which as you have been told is not cheap. I am on my third sump and going to fit a Wolf Sump Plate. Get a local garage to put the car up on ramps and have a look at the sump and oil filter for grinding and damage.

Outside of this I would recommend trying a known good Plus 8 from someone near you to see how that feels as the VANOS kicks in to compare ? Then it's off to the Morgan Aero skilled dealer. If you can get the specific codes from the people you went to in advance of speaking to the Morgan dealer it should help.

Depending on your IT comfort level it is good to have an ODB2 device (search for ELM327 as an example) and phone/tablet with some software to read the codes it finds. There are many including Carly, Torque etc. If you live in fear of it then your local garage usually has a little ruggedised tablet provided by Snap-On which is the pro version and can read things as a guide so your chosen Morgan garage has something to start with. It can be a treck to get to one of the dealers so this provides a quick catch-net.

Hope that helps. I am not a car engineer but have lived with Aeros for a bit and seen this often. It is a rugged engine/box/axle but the exposed sump is a weakness of the platform. Sleeping policemen are not your friend.

We have some very skilled people on the forum, I am certain others will be along shortly.

All of what Alistair says is very good advice.

I have had similar EML issues on my Aeromax in the past and on taking it to my local Aero guru (Mark Middleton in Upton on Seven) he was able to tell me that it was probably just an eletronic 'hiccup' (they all do that sir!!) and quickly deleted the error message and of course the EML light went out. This led me to, as Alistair suggests, get hold of a wireless OBDII device and associated iphone app (I use one called OBD Fusion) which you can use to delete an error message and get the EML to go off. On the couple of occassions during my ownership that the EML has come back on I simple used OBD Fusion to switch it off, switched off the ignition for a few minutes and on restarting no EML light indicating no major problem. If that does not work ie: the EML continues to light up then as Alistair says you could have one of a number of 'issues' with the MAF sensor being high up the list.

I have also heard about the oil starvation problem due to a small dent in the sump. It is apparently due to the oil pickup in the sump being very close to the sump wall. The best and cheapest cure apparently is to get a mechanic who knows about this engine to take off the sump when the car is in for servicing and cut a small groove in the oil pickup so that it does not block if pressed hard against the sump due to a dent in the latter. I have had this mod done to my car. I also think fitting of a sump guard to protect the sump from damage is a good idea and managed to find a second-hand one made by Richard Thorne which has been fitted to my car.

Hope your EML problem is not as suggested by your local garage due to needing a new anything much less an expensive VANOS.

Certainly follow Alisdtair's sound advice before you commit to spending a large sum on what might be something that is not needed.

Regards

Malcolm

Oh, nice find about the notch in the pickup Malcolm, will look at doing that when the wolf plate is fixed to it. Thank you.

EML coming on are common on aluminium chassis Plus 8's, usually something trivial. I'm lucky in having a good one, others seem problematic. I knock off the power switch under the bonnet whilst garaged. Try knocking the power off for 24 hours and see if your light goes out, most problems seem to be the Lambdas, unlikely IMHO anything to do with the Vanos, actually I'm almost sure the 4.8 doesn't use the Vanos unlike the 4.4's, keep us informed.....

For context, low screen wash would flicker the low oil warning light on my Aero - a useful feature once I got used to it. And a sign that the wiring in these cars may be a bit french in its attitude

Will

Another thumbs up for an OBDII to do your own simple check. They are not a full get out of jail option but are useful. I have an Autel Maxiscan bought to use on my Rover V8 car. It helped for two situations of EML light coming on. Faults identified were
1. Random Intermittent Misfire. Solved by using higher octane petrol after checks on plugs, leads, other connections etc.
2. Downstream oxygen sensor heater circuit fault [ post cat).
Both solved fairly easily.
The Maxiscan also lets you do engine running monitoring where you can see a lot of useful data. It helped me ID which one of two sensors was faulty by looking at the voltage readouts from each one.
As for the Vanos on the BMW it reminds me of the Honda Vtec system of ( if I remember correctly) oil pressure opening a valve to trigger a timing change at higher revs. The cure was usually a new valve trigger unit not a big head rebuild.
Having just moved to a Plus Four with a BMW engine I have entered a whole new world!
It’s amazing that in modern engines so many things link to the ecu to trigger an EML light. Most are ok as they can prevent problems but some seem OTT. Nice tip about sump dents though. The speed bumps in my area are breeding fast and many must be out of spec for shape/height seeing how even the Kia reacts to them.

As above, I doubt it requires a new VANOS system - that sounds very dramatic and expensive.

I put a Wolf sump guard/rubbing plate on mine as the sump plug is incredibly easy to damage - it can even be twisted a little by contact with mud leading to an oil leak... as I found out. The Wolf plate has saved my engine on numerous occasions, well worth it.

Also as others have said, it's worth getting an OBD II diagnostic tool - relatively inexpensive on Amazon and worth it to see what fault codes are being thrown up.

My experience from 8 years and almost 40,000 miles with Tarka, the Plus 8...

1. Sump... the guard is a VERY good idea. The oil filter housing is plastic and secured by a captive brass nut moulded into the plastic. It is the lowest part of the car: if the nut is ground away the filter housing falls of and the oil is pumped out very quickly. The Wolf plate protects this part.

2. OBD....my car had a regular habit of triggering the Engine light. Always the same, the left hand catalyst O2 sensor wasn't sending data fast enough to the computer, so the computer assumed the cat wasn't working. Every time this was triggered accelerating hard when the ambient temperature was low and I'd been cruising at low revs. Better to change down before pushing the loud pedal for. I ended up keeping the car in sport mode as this seemed to minimise the risk of the light coming on.

That is about it...occasional gremlins from the CanBus network to do with rear lights, brake lights, etc.
Always used premium unleaded and Mobil 1 oil.
Never broke down, never had a puncture.

Many thanks to all who have replied to my post. Have had the light reset and all worked okay for the next two runs in the car but then light came back on again. This has happened twice now. Car booked in to have it looked at when I return from short holiday. Will keep you all informed of the outcome and once again thanks for all the suggestions.