Do I take shadow codes (with no other symptoms) seriously?
Hi,
First of all my car is:
BMW 330i 2005 with the N52 engine (alu block) and ±120k miles.
I have been having a few reoccuring codes related to timing - both exhaust and intake side. Very crucially, the car is running completely fine and never threw an actual engine code or anything noticeable on the car itself. I drove it both soft and hard. It is only when I scan it with an advanced scanner that can read shadow codes that I get a full series of these related to timing - specifically 2A87, 2A82, 2A98. I have been reading about this back and forth and I am none the wiser (I obviously acknowledge that just because it is the same codes, does not mean the same cure to all).
The car has been through a garage before where they tried to swap the VANOS solenoids between each other and replaced the adjustor units. I was then recommended that the entire timing chain should be replaced. The garage was quite shady from the beginning and I gather that timing chain failure on the N52 is incredibly unlikely and I was not quite ready to fork out over £1000 in parts for something that is probably not even the source of the issue…
Next steps? Do I worry about this or continue driving? I was going to start with replacing camshaft sensors for new and see if that helps. Seeing as these are quite cheap and reading that this did sort the issues for some.
Thanks for any help or insight in advance