Can someone tell me what's wrong with my car?

[Calico_NC]

I just got my car out the shop today, and had an oil leak fixed along with a full set of brakes. They also replaced my timing chain and camshaft(which they replaced since they broke it) Also some head gaskets i believe. Anyway, upon getting my car back today, it seems like the acceleration at high RPM's is very weak. At about 3000rpm, i was going only about 60mph. And it didnt get better the faster i went so i stayed under 60mph. I know thats incorrect. I heard some strange noise from inside the hood while i was driving. It only became audible when i press the gas down. Also, before the repair, i could press the acceleration down and it would kickdown. Now, it does it very, very, slowly, or it doesn't do it at all. Now it just strains and goes up to higher rpm's. I checked to see if the kickdown plug under the pedal was connected and it was. The Trans Program warning did not come on, so i know it wasn't that. What could it be?

Could a plug or something be disconnected in the engine making it not respond when traveling at higher rpms?

P.S. I will take it back, but there not open on Sun.

[repenttokyo]

vacuum leak?

[Calico_NC]

would that cause the problem? My idle is real smooth though. It also feels like it Stutters when taking off or going in to second gear. Not as in hesitation though.

[Dr. evil]

they broke your camshaft??? .....thats weird

which gaskets did they replace??

does your car have VANOS??

[Bin_jammin]

Can you post an invoice of the work performed? I've broken exactly one camshaft in my life, and it was when I had just started working on cars (I was very green at the time) It was on an integra, I was doing a head swap, and I didn't unbolt the cam caps in the proper order. This let the cam bind in the head and it just popped when I got to the last cap. Lucky me the head I was swapping into the car had a set of cams in it. I'd like to know why they were doing all that work in the first place that would even lead to something like that happening.

If I had to guess, I'd say they dicked up your cam timing, it sounds like you're a couple degrees off on at least one cam.

I used to work at a shop owned by a guy fresh out of school. I mean really green, like his father had money, he was a screw up, his father paid for him to go to tech school and bought him a gas station. When I first started working there he had a 318ti that ran like garbage, just like your car. He had diagnosed an oil leak, and from what I recall had sold the owner a timing chain at the same time. Well, his idiot brother had been bored while running the gas station the next morning after he had taken the timing chain off, so he hopped in the car and turned on the radio so he'd have something to listen to, but the genius had never disconnected the battery and he ended up bumping the starter. Not far enough to bend valves, but his brother could never figure out how to line the cams up.

The genius had tried setting the cam timing 4 or 5 more times since that happened, he was pulling his hair out because he couldn't figure it out, and none of his books listed how to set cam timing. The car had been there for over two weeks. I know the owner was none too thrilled. I told him "look, you don't know what you're doing, I don't care how much it sucks, call the dealer"

He finally listened to me, they charged him an hour or two to set the cam timing, and I learned how to do it later, but I think the moral of the story is that whoever worked on your car sounds like a hack at worst, or they weren't paying attention at best.

[Calico_NC]

yeah i can post an invoice in a couple of hours. Im starting to think that it might be a cam timing problem because it seems to idle real smooth. Maybe he didn't test the car out after replacing everything. And if he did, the shop was located in the busy city, maybe he didn't have enough roadway to get into the higher gears. IDK

[Dr. evil]

sounds to me that something is wrong with your VANOS

[Calico_NC]

What is a Vanos?

[BMWCCA1]

Sounds to me that any shop who broke your original camshaft (how did that occur? Illuminate us!) shouldn't be trusted with replacing it, especially on a VANOS (variable valve timing) engine. Sounds like a bunch of hacks to me. What are their BMW credentials?

[Calico_NC]

here is the invoice, kinda hard to see though:

http://calico05.googlepages.com/lastscan11.jpg
How do I know if i have a VANOS or not. I never heard of it.