[daly]

My head gasket started to leak oil. I am not a do it yourselfer for things like this. First shop I contacted said they need to pull timing chain to do head gasket, is that correct?

Any idea what job should cost to change gaskets?

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[gbarrier]

Car has timing belt, not chain but yes timing and balance shaft belt to do the job. Find someone who knows the engine.

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[Ryan]

Is it for sure the head gasket and not the valve cover gasket?

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[vliegwielolaf1234]

There is an oil channel it runs up thru the headgasket .

Right side rear (exhaust side ) .

There is oil under pressure in there and i have replaced gaskets before because of leak there .

The oil tends to leaks on exhaust if it leaks there ,smoke a smells .

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[Cloud9...68]

I think the mechanic was referring to the chain in the variocam system, and yes, it has to come out, along with the cams, and then the cams need to be timed when they go back. Replacing the head gasket on these cars is a huge job, unfortunately. Definitely be absolutely sure it's leaking before you pay to replace it.

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[flash]

and be sure they have the correct tools. it takes some pretty specialized stuff to do this job right.

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[Cloud9...68]

How many miles are on the engine? If your shop is able to conclusively determine that your head gasket is bad, there's a lot of while-you're-in-there stuff you should also do. You absolutely have to replace the variocam pads and chain, the timing and balance shaft belt, possibly the rollers, and I would replace the o-ring for the variocam oil tube. And as long as you have the head off, if you have over, say, 120K miles, you might has well do a head refresh, including most likely replacing the valve guides, and machining the valve faces and seats. With everything, you're probably looking at $1500 - $2K, and like Flash says, you have to make sure the shops has the tools required for the job.



Do you see oil accumulating up anywhere? I agree with Ryan that it could just be the valve cover gasket. If you can see oil pooling, you might want to clean it up thoroughly, replace the valve cover gasket, and then watch to see if the pooling is gone.

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[ds968]

At around 100K miles + most head gaskets are pretty beat up and guessing they probably don't have that much life left in them anyway, but yeah, if it's not leaking and it is the valve cover gasket that's the problem, it's a piece of cake to replace ( just make sure you buy a couple of spare valve cover bolts, one or two are bound to break in the process ) With the cover off you'll aslo be able to see the variocam assembly, the shape of the pads, etc. ( keep in mind you can't see the bottom pad very well even with a special mirror dropped in there, and that one wears out at least at double the rate of the top one ..for some inexplicable reason, but it always does ). However, that head refresh job Cloud is talking about might cost more like $ 3 K or even more, IMO . Mine was $ 6 K, and granted, that included new valves, lifters, guides, new variocam pads and chain, and then also the belts, rollers, tensioner and all that other stuff..

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[Cloud9...68]

Yeah, I thought my estimate might have been low. Like DS says, it's probably over $3K. There's just a huge amount of work involved in getting to the head gaskets on these cars, and an awful lot of stuff that should be replaced while you have everything off and apart. And while many head gaskets might look shot after 100K miles or so, anecdotally, it appears that they continue to seal OK even after they look bad cosmetically. I've honestly never heard of one causing an oil leak, but vliegwielolaf1234 is a smart guy, so if he's seen it, I'm sure it's possible.

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[banditsc]

Had a local here that just did a head gasket on a sub 100k car. He bought it and was looking for things to do, he tracked down a oil leak to the head gasket. The gasket was swiss cheesy like mine even though it had no cooling issues, also had to deck the head a little do to some pitting. The car was maintained by Porsche and they did ridiculous amounts of unneeded work on it when it was in, so it probably had yearly Porsche coolant flushes.

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[vliegwielolaf1234]

i have seen a few , but not many , also i suspected all of them of overheating issues before ,because owners told me they had thermostat replaced because of problems , so that could have been part off the problem .



The reason i mentioned it is , that would be the only place i would suspect a oil leak in the headgasket , since the other places the oil flows down to the sump and there is no presure there normally .



So if no leak there , which in my cases where the worst at cold start up , and once heated up they where still there but would be less .



I would clean the engine change the valve cover gasket etc , and see what happens before pulling the head .



And check all the variocam parts under the cover before putting it back on

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[daly]

Turns out to be valve cover gasket, thankfully.

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[flash]

pretty common.



that being said, don't count out having to do the head gasket just yet. we have found them to be deteriorating in EVERY car, if they are still original. it's only a matter of time before it goes.



also, variocam pads are showing to be commonly in need of changing anywhere from 80k to 120k (less if it has been on dino oil for long). this requires pulling the cams. at that point, it would be really dumb not to change the head gasket.



so, save your pennies.

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[parptarf]

Not to steal the thread or anything but, where is this VarioCam gasket? And I take it it's easier to change than the head gasket. <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/biggrin.png" class="smilie" alt="" />



I'm going through all the steps to make use my car will be problem free. In other words, fixing stuff when it's old but not quite broken.

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[flash]

the only "gasket" associated to the variocam is the one under the solenoid retainer plate. it's the pads that are generally the items to change. those require cam removal, which is about half of the head gasket job.

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[parptarf]

In other words I'll do everything if I'm already gonna do the headgasket. Thanks!

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[flash]

you could look at it that way. or you could look at it and say "if i have to do the variocam, i may as well do the head gasket"

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[parptarf]

Well yeah. I'm going to change my head gasket just to have done it sooner or later so then I'll do the VarioCam too.

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[flash]

makes really good sense.

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[parptarf]

Better to be safe than sorry. <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/wink.png" class="smilie" alt="" />

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