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I have a 2009 g37 coupe i got that code a week ago and the car shakes a lot. I did an oil change i searched the forum, but cant really find anything useful. Could use some help
I have a 2009 g37 coupe i got that code a week ago and the car shakes a lot. I did an oil change i searched the forum, but cant really find anything useful. Could use some help
that's the code for the variable camshaft timing sprocket. If you're lucky, its just a stuck valve, but unfortunately it is usually comorbid with a rear timing gasket failure. It's not a cheap repair.
what's the car's history? Milage? Recent purchace? Regular oil changes?
I got it 2 months ago but it was salvage not from the dealer it ran fine it then went in limp mode i took aff the battery for an hour, put it back on the started getting this code it has 94k miles on it and i did an oil chance and a new oil filter
Yeah, that sounds like the rear timing cover. You'll probably pop a P0524 code as well for low oil pressure.
what happens is an oil gallery gasket in the rear timing cover springs a leak. That gallery feeds oil to the device that uses oil pressure to adjust the camshaft timing. As a result, you get the p0021 or P0022 code for the camshaft sprocket and a P0524 for low oil pressure and the car goes into limp mode.
Now, that is not to say that the camshaft sprocket can't get gummed up from improper maintenence and throw a code without the gasket leak, but 9/10 times the gasket leak is the culprit. The repair is about $2000 as it requires taking off the front of the engine and removing the timing chain and all the associated components.
Get your oil pressure checked to confirm and report back with the findings. If the oil pressure is below spec (usually its low only by a couple PSI with this gasket leak), then you're outta luck and need to have the rear timing cover replaced
Thanks for the help. I took out the camshaft valve
Timing solenoid and cleaned them and switched positions to see if the code jumps to the other camshaft, but so far the code dif not come back so i will update if it comes back.
I dread the day when I have to tackle this job, the cost of parts is nothing but I don't even wanna know how much labor would run for something like this.
Maybe i can seafoam it has anyone ever tried it. Will it do any harm to the engine?
As a last ditch effort before someone takes apart your engine apart, it probably won't hurt anything. That said, you already cleaned it by hand. It seems redundant. Was it sludgy in there?
The oil was pitch black, have no idea when the last oil change was but im thinking about doing it again in 1000 miles then every 3000 after that. Maybe some lucas oil treatment for the first two oil changes would help. I dont think its the gasket because if i had low oil pressure it wouldnt just go away it would be present all the time.
The oil was pitch black, have no idea when the last oil change was but im thinking about doing it again in 1000 miles then every 3000 after that. Maybe some lucas oil treatment for the first two oil changes would help. I dont think its the gasket because if i had low oil pressure it wouldnt just go away it would be present all the time.
The previous lessee of my car was lax on maintence, so I have experience with this.
The lucas stuff isnt what you want to be using. That's a thickener, which is the last thing you want.
Pitch black oil on its own doesnt tell you much. Oil will turn black long before it degrades and forms sludge. How does everything look through the oil fill? Any sludge visible? Was the sensor you pulled out and cleaned heavily varnished or covered in sludge? You seem to know how to turn a wrench, so why not drop the oil pan and check? Clean up anything you see by hand and make sure the screen on the oil pickup is clear (plugging this is the biggest danger with any flush product). Also make sure the PCV valves are clear
If you then want to do a flush to help clean out the rest of the engine after that, id recommend using a 15min idle flush first to clear out the bulk, change the oil, then use something you can leave in for 500-1000 miles to slowly clean out the remainder. Note that if you do have a gasket failure that you could have sludge partially obstructing the blown out gasket and a flush will clear that making the leak worse.
As for the oil pressure, the gasket leak generally isn't large enough to cause a significant drop in oil pressure and it may take some time for the code to reappear. When my car went into limp mode for low oil pressure related to the gasket failure it took more than a week after clearing the code gor it to come back. The oil pressure test at the dealership was only off by 1-2 psi from normal.
10-16-2017, 11:39 PM
