[Suvorovo]

2006 330xi 122k miles, recently purchased. Hopefully this thread will become useful for these aging e90s that still don't have massive Vanos failure issue.

The car has a 2a98 Intake Camshaft Correlation error code which sometimes appears during cold starts (all before my ownership). From the DME detail error list attachment, they usually appear at 9C, 13C, and 19C at high RPMs ~1400-1600. I predict these errors showed due to the owner pressing the gas on a cold engine with a thick oil and the vanos solenoids could not keep up with the demand to advance the eccentric shaft. Engine runs smoothly on cold winter starts as indicated by the INPA rough running screen. No jitters, no ticks.

The vanos system is functioning properly. The two other attachments from INPA demonstrate correct intake/exhaust eccentric shaft advancement during both idle and revving the engine. Note: these solenoids are original and have been used for 122k miles. Also, this car was very well taken care of and there are few adaptations (on the INPA running and idle screenshots) which usually accrue as the engine gets older to compensate for eccentric shaft wear (i.e. bearing ledge wear), timing chain stretch, vanos system wear, and solenoid age. Intake and exhaust camshaft position sensors were both changed at 96k miles by the previous owner at a shop which were most likely genuine BMW as the sensors cost $130 each w/o labor. Some repairs were made at the dealer to various airbag sensors/modules and PCV recall at 100k. On that statement the dealer recommended to change the Vanos Solenoids without any other comment.

Is this code anything I should worry about or fix as preventative maintenance incase of more catastrophic failure? Anything else I should look in to or just monitor the situation to see if that error code comes back?

Here are some possible solutions from the posts on the forum and various youtube videos. Usually the below are associated with several other codes which indicate worse problems:

1. Solenoids are beginning to fail and this code is an initial indication.
2. Oil check valves have built up deposits and are starting to clog
3. Bearing ledge wear - highly doubt as this would impact eccentric shaft advancement
4. Engine slightly out of time - very unlikely

Let me know what you guys think!