[MooLard]

Hi there

Just wondering if anyone has experienced the same, my car has 100k miles on and has started smoking, it only happens when pulling away from stationary or if I rev the engine when in neutral.
There seems to be high crankcase pressure, white smoke comes from the oil filler cap when it is off plus it is weeping a bit of oil when it is screwed on. The car has started using a bit of oil too now.
Never a good time for this to happen, especially now though as I have replaced two rear tyres and a gearbox oil pipe all i nthe last three weeks! So far in relation to this I have replaced the oil breather valve / filter in hope of an easy win. No such luck though.
Any thoughts on what might be up and what to check next would be greatly appreciated. TIA

[32valves]

Possibly your valve cover gasket, mine shit the bed at 100k also...

[LucasAry]

Originally Posted by 32valves

Possibly your valve cover gasket, mine shit the bed at 100k also...

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[MooLard]

Hi there, thanks for your thoughts on this, for my understanding how and where would this link to the symptoms I am having? I cannot see oil leaking around the edges of the valve cover, I see it seals something in the middle too but am not sure what.

[32valves]

It's leaks internally there is 6 ports in the valve cover that leaks into the crankcase which pressurizes. Mine burned lots of oil and smoked like hell.

[MooLard]

Hi there
Thanks again for your replies, car is booked to my preferred indy next Monday, I read elsewhere that valve stem oil seals could be the issue?
Sounds like a decent labour charge coming up but if it's not the turbo(s) that would be good!

[ranthum]

I had the same thing. Replaced the valve cover and didn't notice any decrease. I think it's an injector leaking extra fuel and the the white smoke is raw diesel. Run some injector cleaner and see if it goes away. Mine is gone now.

[32valves]

Originally Posted by ranthum

I had the same thing. Replaced the valve cover and didn't notice any decrease. I think it's an injector leaking extra fuel and the the white smoke is raw diesel. Run some injector cleaner and see if it goes away. Mine is gone now.

I also had two injectors short out and get stuck wide open but my oil level doubled from fuel getting better n the crankcase

[MooLard]

Hi there, well I think a miracle got me home last night, there was a 10cm puddle of engine oil under the car that had made it out of the undertray, and the levels of smoke had increased a lot. This didn't stop until the last few minutes of my drive home.
I took a brief look to look for leaks from the top half of the engine bay, the only new bit that was weeping was the crankcase breather filter. I checked and all three bolts were tight so I took it off, checked the seal and for debris and re-fitted.
I am not going to drive the car again until Monday when I will have to nurse it to the indy garage. I am curious as to what they will check first when diagnosing the car, I have used them numerous times before and trust them to work as efficiently as possible.

[32valves]

Originally Posted by MooLard

Hi there, well I think a miracle got me home last night, there was a 10cm puddle of engine oil under the car that had made it out of the undertray, and the levels of smoke had increased a lot. This didn't stop until the last few minutes of my drive home.
I took a brief look to look for leaks from the top half of the engine bay, the only new bit that was weeping was the crankcase breather filter. I checked and all three bolts were tight so I took it off, checked the seal and for debris and re-fitted.
I am not going to drive the car again until Monday when I will have to nurse it to the indy garage. I am curious as to what they will check first when diagnosing the car, I have used them numerous times before and trust them to work as efficiently as possible.

Like I said sounds like the valve cover...

[MooLard]

After a short delay and going back to the diagrams I finally see what you mean by the six ports going in to the valve cover, they are for the inlet manifold longer ports, and the shorter ones go in to the side of the cylinder head!
I see now that this can't really be tested easily or at all, I have relayed this info on to the garage for their thoughts when the come to doing it.

[Owen81]

Andrew@FixMyVW posted a video testing the VCG. I believe they pressurized the crank case and had a glove over the turbo inlet, which then started inflating due to the VCG leak?

[MooLard]

Thanks for the note on that, I have checked that video channel previously, just checked again and am struggling to find a video title that's even similar where he would end up testing the crank case pressure, you are right though ultimately the garage would ideally check this prior to dismantling if they think it's at fault.
If anyone else spots the video please send me a link, many thanks,

[QUIKDZL]

At 136,000 miles, my engine started leaking oil with most of it burning on the exhaust manifold. Ugly, stinking mess. Mine was leaking at almost all seals and gaskets.

My engine was tuned, and boost increased significantly, at 101,000 miles. The leaks showed up suddenly 35,000 miles later. Dealer said valve cover gasket was bad. I assumed it was simply leaking and did not know it was the cause of the problem. Dealer removed engine/transmission assembly and replaced crank seals, timing chain, valve cover, and head gaskets. Also, all vacuum hoses.

Engine is now perfect. Learn from my misfortune and replace the valve cover gasket as preventive maintenance at 100-120,000 miles. The repair bill was about $6000!

[MooLard]

Originally Posted by QUIKDZL

At 136,000 miles, my engine started leaking oil with most of it burning on the exhaust manifold. Ugly, stinking mess. Mine was leaking at almost all seals and gaskets.

My engine was tuned, and boost increased significantly, at 101,000 miles. The leaks showed up suddenly 35,000 miles later. Dealer said valve cover gasket was bad. I assumed it was simply leaking and did not know it was the cause of the problem. Dealer removed engine/transmission assembly and replaced crank seals, timing chain, valve cover, and head gaskets. Also, all vacuum hoses.

Engine is now perfect. Learn from my misfortune and replace the valve cover gasket as preventive maintenance at 100-120,000 miles. The repair bill was about $6000!

Wow, big bill and well recovered! I am not fully sure but think my remap kept the boost level the same or similar. Not ideal but I am driving it gently on a short commute to work and back today and tomorrow, it is getting looked at by a BMW specialist on Monday, I am half tempted to buy the parts and do myself just to see if I can fix it myself but in this instance time won't allow and due to misplacing tools I would probably need to buy a new socket set before I attempt my next motoring job.

Sounds like the dealer did a thorough job, and charged you accordingly! Agreed in that providing that I catch and rectify this promptly it should need less parts replacing.

[robnitro]

Most tunes don't increase boost much until you get the highest stock turbo tune or a hybrid turbo tube.

Wow crazy bill... Anything you notice before it went, like using more oil etc?

I think I will do it someday, but it's a pain because you have to remove the injectors to get the valve cover off! Anyone have a link to a howto on the vcg?

[MooLard]

Hello again, any pointers on how many hours it takes to do the valve cover gasket, also do the injectors have to come fully out or just disconnected? Cheers

[ranthum]

Originally Posted by MooLard

Hello again, any pointers on how many hours it takes to do the valve cover gasket, also do the injectors have to come fully out or just disconnected? Cheers

It really isn't that bad of a job. Maybe 2 hours. Remove cabin air filter and tray. Remove engine cover. Remove intake manifold. Remove injector harnesses. Remove vacuum reservoir. Remove injectors. Remove valve cover. Remove valve cover bolts and gasket. Reverse.

[MooLard]

Morning! Nice one thanks for the steer on that, was just keen to know as the garage said up to four hours from start to finish and mentioned the injectors have to come off, just wanted to validate what they were saying. Lets see if this does the trick.
This is the third garage I have taken it to, most recent is a BMW specialist but there isn't anyone local who has done lots of work on 335d's, and in turn no one who has seen this same problem. Their phoning around has made them inclined to investigate the turbos for oil leaks in to the exhaust but their pointers on this have come from a company who sells turbos, so clearly their experience comes from turbos only and ultimately they exist to sell turbos!
Will do them if they need doing but I am trying to avoid doing them if it won't fix the problem.

[ranthum]

It could easily take 4 hours if you're not familiar with these cars. The vacuum tank is a PITA and the old valve cover gasket can be difficult to remove. The 2 hour estimate is if you know what you're doing and don't encounter any problems. My injectors came right out, but others have had some difficulty (or with the copper washers). Compared to the other stuff I've done to this car it was one of the more straight forward jobs. It would also be a good time to delete EGR and delete swirl flaps if you haven't already done so.

[MooLard]

Excellent thanks for the reassurances, I haven't used this particular garage before even though it turns out I have met the owner in a gym capacity in the past!
Good news, my EGR and cooler were deleted a long time ago, I am keeping the swirl flaps though, I did remove them on a previous E60 535d but having read up I would prefer to keep them. thought should be looking ok and maybe even carbon free due to the water injection.

[MooLard]

Just to conclude, I got my car back last night and the valve cover gasket did indeed fix the problem, I am mighty pleased to say the least! The garage also replaced the inlet manifold gaskets which makes sense while it's apart. It was four hours labour but no charge for diagnosis as I asked them to do the specific job.
Thank you very much for all of the replies and input here, diagnosing a car online does seem like a bit of a gamble but in this example by giving enough detail and description it is possible.
Upon getting the car back I noticed that the idle is smoother and acceleration is smoother too, so for future reference if you have similar issues plus rough idle and rough acceleration then this gasket could be your issue.
Lastly, it looks like the garage didn't need to go near the underside of the car to do this job as there was still pools of oil in there and spatterings of oil on the underside of the car. So last night I spent two hours taking the understay off to wipe and clean it all as best as possible. I didn't really have strong enough chemicals for the job but the pools of oil are now gone.