2001 BMW 740i e38 Oil Leaks and Faulty Timing Chain Guide Rails

This 740i BMW came to us with pretty bad oil leaks and check engine light indicating problems with the cam timing vanos system. We recommended resealing the timing covers and inspecting the timing components. Once we had the upper timing covers off we were able to see that the plastic ramps on the timing chain guides had failed, removing the lower covers revealed the extent of the damage. Since we did not find all of the failed timing parts with the covers removed we removed the oil pan where we found more debris, some of which was blocking the oil pump pickup. It’s a good thing we caught this when we did or the engine would have failed due to bent valves, failed rod bearings or both. After inspecting all of the timing components and replacing the need parts the oil leaks were corrected and the vanos faults were gone.