BMW 318i, leaking rocker box gasket

Verres

The title says it all, except for three vital pieces of info:

i) I only noticed this leak because of the slight burning oil smell that appears after a few minutes driving when the car has been sitting around for a few days; gasket seems to be dripping a tiny amount of oil on the aluminium shield above the exhaust manifold. I stuck my fingers in there and sure enough there was a bit of oil there. So that appears to be the source of the smell.

ii) There is no appreciable drop in engine oil level (according the on-board sensors)

iii) I'm taking the car to France (Bordeaux) 1,400 km there and back in June.

So, my problem is I've been quoted "€215 - €220" to fix the gasket (Chelmsford Motors in Ranelagh). And I'm just not in the mood to spend another 220 on this, after I had it up to Atlas in Sandyford 1 week ago and they didn't spot (or bother fixing) the problem during their service & tyre work which cost me €1,000.

Do I need to get this done now, or is this something that can be put off until I get back from France at the end of June? How likely is it that this will become a serious gasket failure (does this even happen?) while I'm on the motorway?

Any advice would be seriously appreciated. I obviously don't want to spend the money if I can put if off for a month or two, but if it's a real risk I'll just get it done now.

Thoughts?

Thanks guys / gals.

El Guapo!

Fairly common problem on the 3 series. It's nothing major and if you kept an eye on the oil level you'll be grand.
€220 is a bit much though. You could pick up the gasket and do it yourself as its a fairly straight forward fix.

Verres

Thanks Dean. Yeah - I've been reading around (here and bimmerforums) and a lot of the guys are doing it themselves. It's just that topping up the windscreen washer fluid is the sum total of my interaction with "under the bonnet". I wouldn't be confident enough to just "give it a go" considering that if I balls it up I could mangle the car; one of the risks is getting "instant gasket" in the wrong places, I believe. I'd be happier to leave it to a professional (or a non-professional who just knew WTF he was doing ;@)).

Glad to hear that it's nothing too major. I'll definitely keep an eye on the olio and if I see a drop I'll head into a garage over there and get it fixed.

Anyone else want to chime in and ease my jangled nerves?
Leaving it be:

i) The Right Move (tm)

or

ii) Oh No!

jayok

I too had this problem, €30 for a new gasket and a bit of gasket sealant and you're all done - it's not the most difficult job. The smell of the oil it is dripping onto the exhaust, more of a pain in the a$$ than anything else.

Get someone who's handy with spanners and buy them a beer. Take's about 1.5 hours the first time to do this.

Oh and I'd be a fan of fixed it now rather than run out of oil on a French motorway!

Idbatterim

get a quote from bloomfield motors....

Spipov

got the same work done by chelmsford. had been spotted by the guys who had been checking my car out before i bought it before. brought it to chelmsford, and i was quite happy with the work.

in the land of bmws, its going to cost you no matter what. ive dropped a fair amount on the car, but at least i have good peace of mind with it knowing what exactly is going wrong and being told what was done to correct it.

id get a quote from bloomfield, make sure that includes labour. when they were AC, labour cost more than parts. personally id go with chelmsford, but thats just my opinion.

matt-dublin

I have this problem as well but haven't done anythign about it. every time the car is cold i get that smell and sometimes she judders pulling away (i think its because the pressure isn't great when the engine is cold and when she warms up the rocker cover expands sealing up the leak, somewhat similar to when take the oil cap off when the engine is running)

i may have a more serious problem though. I just keep topping her up for the moment

Verres

Cheers lads. I agree that running out of oil on the autoroute is a terrible idea, but the car doesn't seem to be losing an appreciable amount of oil - just enough to burn off when the car heats up.

Also, as mentioned, I know that I could do it myself but I don't have the wrenches and stuff and I'd be a bit wary.

I'll check out Bloomfield for a quote - cheers!

pa990

I had the same problem.
Had the rcg replaced.. But the problem persists