Hello, I have a 2008 535i (German Spec--if that matters). I'm at 90k miles and I had a small leak in the valve cover, oil filter housing, blah blah, typical n54.

I replaced the valve cover gasket, intake manifold gaskets, oil filter housing/oil cooler housing gaskets, spark plugs, and a few other things... in accordance with the Bentley manual. This means: gasket is not folded, I did not use silicon/liquid gasket, the bolts were torqued in the proper pattern to just snug, and then to torque spec.

Let me preface what I'm about to say by this: I'm not BMW guru, the car has been under warranty until now so I really haven't had much wrench time on it. I do however, have much experience with these sorts of repairs in many other vehicles.

Everything went fine, nothing crazy discovered (inspected valve cover--its fine). But I'm getting an oil leak on what appears to be a head shield on the exhaust side (low side). It's not much, but it's pooling and coming out from the bend in the heat shield. The biggest pool is about half the diameter of a dime at worst and its low side, mid engine, right underneath the plastic housing for the fuel/ground wires.

I have searched tirelessly for the leak. The only thing I can find on searching the forums for an answer is that someone suggested it was the oil filter housing or oil filler cap? Not sure how that would be possible, but I checked and STILL cannot locate origin. Gasket appears dry.

I have no time crunch for this, but it's frustrating the absolute shit out of me.

I'll turn on the car, drive it.. won't smell anything, but after it sits for awhile it's like it builds off and then runs off and hits the turbo.

Someone please shed some light before I lose my mind.

The part the oil is pooling on is here: (No. 3)


Photos for reference:

 

Bump

 

did you get a telescoping mirror down there to see if its leaking under the valve cover?
or place a camera down there and snap some shots, since visibility isnt great.
only you can find out where its leaking.

 

I heard some people having leaks if they didn't replace the valve cover bolts after changing the gasket.

Did u wait for the car to cool down completly before u began working?

 

I had the same issue after replacing my valve cover gasket (torquing to spec as you did). I went through and re-torqued about three weeks later and found some bolts that were a bit too loose. Once re-tightened the leak stopped and all is good.

 

The bolts are re-usable on the N54. I too have had to re-torque the bolts if I originally torqued to spec.

 

Mwillman,

Have you figured out what happened? I have the identical situation.

 

Anyone?

I removed and reinstalled the valve cover again. This time, I used some RTV to make sure that the gasket is not moved during the installation. Still, the problem persists. Help, anyone?