Oil Leakage

[ifocus]

I had a strong smell coming from the engine. I opened the hood to check this out; I was shocked to see oil dripping over the manifold. The car is out of service at the dealer to replace the Valve Cover Gasket!

I am pretty disappointed. My X1 has 44,000km. This is my first BMW and the first car over 20 years of ownership leaking oil enough to spoil the driveway. My VW jetta TDI 360,000 km never lost a drop.

What does it mean for the next year or two? Is it a sign of problem to come?


Do you have any oil leakage issues?

Cheers

JY

[edx1]

What year, engine?

[Lucky13]

Since its under warranty I wouldn't worry too much. Yes it shouldn't happen but a valve cover gasket is not a big deal mechanically and shouldn't have done any damage unless you ran it low on oil. Any possibility it was ever overfilled with oil? I 've never heard of BMW's having this issue so I think it's a freak occurrence. I assume its the N20 engine, I'd search the 5 series and 3 series threads to see if this has happened to anyone else.

[Lucky13]

I just remembered having this happen to a brand new 1985 Pontiac Fiero GT. Had it running down the manifold and a small pool under the car. They replaced it and it never leaked again for the next 10 years

[Jossen]

Never thought about it that an engineer made a mistake not closing it good enough at one of your cars' check-ups?

[Grovsnus]

If these are cork (or cork/rubber sandwich) gaskets, keep in mind that they have natural variations, once in a while they may have a natural flaw not easily caught by visual inspection or initial run checks.
Just like you sometimes get a bad cork on a bottle of wine, despite the rigid inspection they go through. When it works, it's the best material, but only time will tell.

[ifocus]

My X1 is a 2012 model year and it has the N20 engine xdrive 2.8. I will report about the final repair once I get the car back from the dealer.

[ifocus]

Just a quick update;
Dealer called Nov 6th to tell me that a second gasket from the valve cover is leaking also. Apparently, there are two gasket sealing the valve cover. This gasket is back order in Canada hence it must come from Germany! I am driving a Mazda 3 loaned by the BMW dealer. As of Nov 16th, there is no firm date when I will get the car back. I cannot find the words to express how bad this is! Really, this is almost 2013 where an ipad can be shipped from China to my house within 3 working days! Does it make you feel confident to drive a BMW X1 pass its warranty?

[Jossen]

Bad management from Canadian HQ, their fault that they themselves don't have enough parts!

On the other hand, this is a fairly new model for Northern America.
Up here in Europe I can't imagine for it to take weeks.

My current car is a Kuga, only had one problem with a Navigation sensor which was replaced with no cost.
Now four months out of warranty and despite being sold, I had a malfunctioning alternator, forced to replace it along with the battery costing 1200 Euro...
But these are regular parts because of it being a PSA engine(roughly half of Europa drives a PSA engine).

If the garage would've told me before replacing the parts I would've bought the parts from a crashed car somewhere in Belgium or Holland, for a fraction of the present bill.

So it's a combination of a fairly new(updated) engine and distance.

Confidence in BMW if it will get out of warranty, hell yeah!
By then parts will be scattered all over the continent Europe + America's!

[ifocus]

After 2 weeks at the dealership, my X1 is now back. The culprit was the eccentric valve shaft seal (i think). It was leaking like a sieve. Post on the forum if you are having the same issue. This is #17 on the diagram.

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts...66&hg=11&fg=15