mmotown

Guys I believe I have a small oil leak that could be my valve covers. It started after my last oil change. How much am I looking at to change out the seals? I am not taking it to the dealership. I have about 120kmiles

fixerupper10

im not sure considering many different mechanics have different service hour prices plus they have to get to covers and look at them and make sure its them and not something else so i bet after everything it can be pretty expensive

[TexMex]

yep. take it to a local shop you trust or have gone to before..usually they will at least take a look under the hood to see where the oil is coming from depending on how busy the mechanics are, etc. then they'll give you a written estimate if they want your buisness bad enough.

zuko

may want to check that your oil cap is also tightened down and not leaking... sometimes the seals on those break down and the oil can come out from the top

po8pimp

you are kidding right.... if oil is spewing out the fill cap than you have a whole lot of issues going on in there. you should see a small flow of oil at the bottom if you open the fill cap while the engine is running. you should be able to open that cap and leave it off if you wanted. granted you don't want anything inside the engine so this is not suggested. If this wasn't the case than you would have to drain your oil to remove your valve cover. worked on many engines and never had to drain the oil to remove the valve covers. The seals on those caps are for keeping the fumes in and contamination out.

Back to the subject. If it is a valve cover gasket issue then you should be able to DIY. I haven't done it on this engine but I have on my pathfinder and if I can do it on that thing then you should be able to do it on this car. I will look after work but if it is accessible you can pick up gaskets at your local shop or get them online. there are some gaskets that last a real long time and I am pretty sure that nissan uses the longer lasting gaskets. install could take a while depending on obsticles. I would assess the situation see if you think you can do it and estimate how long you think it might take, and then double that time and make sure you have at least that much time available. Also keep in mind if you use a chiltons it may not be exact so keep a computer close by. You also know that you can go to your local nissan dealership and request to look at the service manual. never hurts. My dealership even made me copies of pages when I needed them.