This BMW was brought to SL Autoworks because the owner smelled burning oil inside and outside of the vehicle. The odor was being drawn through the fresh air duct for the air conditioning system and became that much more noticeable. Smoke would come out from under the hood, along with an oil spot in his garage. After investigating we found the cause was a gasket leak in the valve cover.
This gasket leak was easily found using a flashlight and looking to the left of the valve cover to see the oil leak.
We removed the valve cover and replaced the gasket. As we always do, we thoroughly cleaned all leak residue.
Gasket Leak Common on BMWs
This particular oil leak is extremely common on just about every BMW. Special care is to be taken when working with most BMW valve covers, as they are plastic and can break if not careful.
Advice From The Experts
- Use the highest quality OEM parts for this repair, but also for every repair and on all BMWs. Make sure to take it to a BMW specialist.
- Replace any associated gaskets when doing the valve cover repair, such as the Valvetronic motor gasket on this particular engine.
