[Trevor Paulus]

Yep- I'm that sucker who bought a W8!

Anwho, it's developed an oil leak that I'm unable to diagnose (mostly because I'm a VW newb). My PCV line was blowing oil right before the valve, but I repaired that, and I'm still getting a leak somewhere.

It's coming off the driver's side, somewhere in the top end, because it pools up on the cylinder bank, right around the coil pack thing (please excuse my newb-ed-ness on that description) over one of the plugs. I realize those have a name, but I've never had a car with that set-up, so I don't know what they are called. Some kind of individual coil for each plug, basically.

My gut tells me head gasket, but I'm not noticing any unusual exhaust smoke, especially not the blue smoke that usually accompanies a blown head gasket in my experiences.

I'm far from a master mechanic, but I can usually wrench on my own stuff, up to a point at least. This W8 scares the **** out of me, though! I think I could handle a head gasket swap, but I'd have to get some feedback from someone who's done it before so I don't get in over my head on something I wasn't expecting.


So, any thoughts on my oil leak? I really don't want to drive 3 hours to my nearest VW dealership and have to sell a kidney to get it fixed. Help the newbie out here fellas...

 

[tripwalking]

If oil is pooling in one of the deep dark spark plug holes, it could be just a valve cover gasket. There are o ring type gaskets that seal around the plug holes. If you have a warranty that covers valve cover gaskets, they might try to wiggle out of covering these gaskets. I eventually got them to pay for the replacement by making them answer the question "if this gasket is not there, will the valve cover leak?" If they say no, they're just wrong, and if they say yes then they have to call it a valve cover gasket. Wow that got OT.

 

[Trevor Paulus]

Thank you sir...

That's exactly what it's doing. Now am I going to have to get that o-ring gasket from a dealership, or is there somewhere online where I can order it?

Thanks a ton for the help.

 

[tripwalking]

Not sure... mine was replaced under warranty (valve cover gasket was covered).

 

[ronnie.colby]

Oil leak... valve cover leak, 4.0 W8

Another sucker who bought a W8! It rips, actually, but won't smog and leaks oil

90 minutes to get the passenger's side/right side/cylinder bank one valve cover off. Surprised that neither the valve cover gasket nor the 4 plug seals were bad. Oh well, putting the new valve cover and plug o-rings on anyway.

But what's below that? The "cover." That's all the Bentley calls it. Bentley adds that it's not possible to replace without removing the engine(page E 15-2).

(Same with the right and left side catalytic converters it needs (see page E 26-3).

To the OP, what was your fix?