Camshaft position sensor locations.....going crazy

[New Z owner]

I've been searching for who knows how long, getting frustrated and don't know what I'm searching incorrectly.

We recently purchased a 2006 3.0i Z4 with only 30k miles, ran fine but now lights are on and it's running rough. The OBDII reader indicated a camshaft position sensor fault, I ordered a couple sensors to replace the exhaust and intake. I am struggling to find any videos or posts that indicate where these sensors can be found, please advise.

 

[t-tony]

I did a write up on changing the inlet cam sensor on my 2000 Z3 2.0. It's the same procedure. The exhaust cam Sensor is dead easy.
Have a look on YouTube. BUT don't use cheap aftermarket sensors, only genuine or OEM quality.

Tony.

 

[New Z owner]

Well that didn't go well...

Purchased (2) BMW Camshaft Position Sensor - VDO 13627525014 from FCP Euro, thought these were OE quality and avoided Ebay and Amazon. Now the car cranks but won't start, are these not good sensors? Car ran before the swap but ran like garbage, now nothing.

 

[New Z owner]

Well that didn't go well...

Purchased (2) BMW Camshaft Position Sensor - VDO 13627525014 from FCP Euro, thought these were OE quality and avoided Ebay and Amazon. Now the car cranks but won't start, are these not good sensors? Car ran before the swap but ran like garbage, now nothing.

Removed the VDO sensors and ordered sensors from BMW, car ran much better and no faults. Next morning lights on dash and car is running rough again? Any ideas why there would be an intermittent fault?

 

[colb]

Check for codes again. Rough running cam be down to air leaks across any of the rubber or plastic vacuum pipes so check for holes or splits in all of these, favourite one is the inlet boot Maf to throttle body. Smoke test should reveal any that you can't find visually. Often overlooked are dipstick tube O ring and blanking plugs on the rear underside of the plastic inlet manifold, these perish ,split and fall off and affect running from the resultant air leak. If you can view live data with a scanner look at fuel trims, high trims are a clue to overfueling as the car is seeing the extra leaked in air at the exhaust sensors that are at odds with what it measured going through the Maf. It sees this as a lean mixture so compensates by increasing fuel at the injectors to richen the mixture. Keeps doing that until it's adding 20% more fuel before it realises it ain't fixing it and then sets the EML on the dash and sets codes for fuel trims being exceeded. A good clean of the idle control valve is always a good move, take it off and spray carb cleaner in it to wash the gunk out of it