zman764

My 2010 is at 111,000 miles and am having the plugs changed as well as shocks and struts.

The service place (AAA) just called and said there is oil in the plugs and it is coming from leaking valve covers. They say it's not uncommon on Nissan's and they recommend replacing both valve covers and gaskets to a price of $300 (in addition to the $490 for the tune up)

Does this sound fishy?

MadMax07SL

Valve covers don't need to be replaced unless they are warped during a repair. Normally it's just the gasket. But looking at a part price, it's under $40 each...that's much cheaper then the 07 I had, they were about $300 for the pair. Here's the thing, if you're leaking on top, I'm guessing the oil is actually on top of the plug and not inside the cylinder side of the plug...then getting the gaskets changed is a good idea. Since the covers are so cheap, might as well go the full distance. But that said, it would be nice if you were there and they could show you what's going on, so you feel better about this. Because no online encouragement in the world is going to make you feel better about spending $300 more.

Serious thing though, be sure you tell them to use a torque wrench on those bolts tighten to spec. I had a dealership *** my head up because they over tightened the valve covers. They tried helicoil repair even that didn't solve the escaping gasses...traded it in because of that.

maxud

What you are describing is oil in spark plug well, which happens when spark plug tube seals are old and not sealing well anymore. This happens to every car make and model, nothing to do specifically with Nissan.
The rubber the gaskets are made off hardens with time and looses flexibility and sealing ability, so the thing to do is to replace it of course.

The spark plug tube seals are typically part of the Valve cover gasket kit.
They are not offering to replace Valve covers (at least I hope they are not), all you need are new Valve cover gasket kits for front and rear bank.

A good time to do it would be during spark plug replacement, because rear bank is not easily accessible, so most of the "tuneup" labor is removing obstacles in reaching the rear bank.

Above answers your initial question.

The second question is, do you trust the shop that is doing the repairs?
The could put a few drops of oil in and make it look like a leak, or there could be a legit leak. At this point you will not find out, because they can make it look like gasket is leaking.
As far as the cost, given how much you are paying for "tuneup", it sounds
like they are a bit on high side, especially since most of the labor is already done.

If the leak is legit, it will only get worse, so you would want to address it before the car starts misfiring due to Coil contamination with oil.

zman764

Thank ya'll for great responses!

Yes, they said the oil is in the spark plug well.

I trust the shop simply because I have no other course of action, I can't exactly leave work and investigate. Even if I could, I don't know enough about automotive repairs to know if they were lying to me or not.

But, knowing that this is an issue and not something completely made up is all I was hoping to find out.

I have owned this car since new and plan on putting another 100k miles on it.

Thanks!

maxud

I did some more research and came out dumbfounded. Nissan has started using plastic valve covers in VQ35. What I did not specifically realized about Nissan, is that the new plastic valve covers do not allow for DIY spark plug tube seal replacements.

Here is some useful info for anybody who stumbles on this thread:
The comments describe some hackary, where you can still sort of replace the
tube seals.

What I did find out is that new valve covers are $50 msrp from Nissan for each.
For that price, I am not going to cry a river and just replace the valve covers if the
need comes.

Here is a link for 2009
https://www.courtesyparts.com/auto-p...ine-parts-scat

Asav

iTrader: (1)

This is right. They are like $40-50 a piece so you may as well replace the covers in our Maximas. The spark plug tube seals on the valve cover are not serviceable without doing this hack; but, at that price point, it isn't worth it. I learned this because I also own the oddball G35 VQ35HR that they made only in 07-08 when changing over to the G37. Those covers are $200 each so people were using this hack which frankly will still leak if you don't do it perfectly. Really though, as long as you get the black rtv and seal around the base of the spark plug tube properly it will be fine. That's what alot of people usually do rather than this method in the video.