Replacing valve stem seals. 2006 X5 4.8is

[craigatkinson]

@ westlotorn,

Can I make all the repairs you did, other than the valve stem seals, without pulling the cams and thereby having to go through the retiming process?

Follow up to above note. Everything is now fixed and working great on the 2005 N62 4.4L X5. The oil smoke from the exhaust is gone. The engine is running good as new. The problem mentioned above was caused by one mistake, the drivers side electircal plug in was not fully inserted in the Vanos plug in. At one point we talked about taking that side apart again and my son had actually started taking that side apart by unplugging the Vanos Control. Once it was plugged back in everything purred. Without it plugged in the car would run great until you put a load on it and it would switch into limp home mode and cut the power to near zero while throwing no codes.

For all those replacing valve stem seals, please do yourself a favor and look into the PCV system on these cars. Check to see if your engine is fully sealed, no air leaks before spending money. Again, the Spark plugs will show if you are burning oil because of valve stem seals, read them before moving forward to change seals. If one or more spark plugs show heavy oil deposits those are the cylinders to look at for valve stem seals. If some are bad change them all. They typically age at the same rate in all cylinders.
If you put your car in a shop to get valve stem seals they will tear it down and end up replacing all the gaskets we replaced and in most cases fix your issue because of the new gaskets and Orings most lilely not because of the valve stem seals. I hope this saves some people money. Many on this forum have helped us fix our cars in the past so I hope this returns the favor.
My wife and I just picked up an X5 so now we have 2 X5's in the family but we sold off two really nice cars, our 2002 530i at 89 K and the 2001 525i at 150K.

Extra benefit: The MPG has jumped back to 20 + on Hwy at 75 MPH like it did years ago. Recently with the smoking exhaust and vacuum issue it would barely make 18 MPG on same trip.



Thank You for taking time to respond with great advice, we changed the parts listed except for the valve stem seals. The Spark Plugs that came out looked great, no sign of oil burning, no carbon build up, no deposits.
For this reason we ruled out valve stem seals and focused on the PCV system, I think BMW uses another term but funciton is for Crankcase ventilation.
FYI, did you now that the reason the pan is exposed to full manifold vacuum in these engines has to do with piston rings, racers found they could run lighter tension oil rings on the piston, less friction and more HP if they put vacuum in the oil pan, it helped the oil ring funciton. Another way to maken an engine more efficient. This was new tech to racers in the 90's but now used in pass car engines.

[Doru]

Follow up to above note. Everything is now fixed and working great on the 2005 N62 4.4L X5. The oil smoke from the exhaust is gone. The engine is running good as new. The problem mentioned above was caused by one mistake, the drivers side electircal plug in was not fully inserted in the Vanos plug in. At one point we talked about taking that side apart again and my son had actually started taking that side apart by unplugging the Vanos Control. Once it was plugged back in everything purred. Without it plugged in the car would run great until you put a load on it and it would switch into limp home mode and cut the power to near zero while throwing no codes.

For all those replacing valve stem seals, please do yourself a favor and look into the PCV system on these cars. Check to see if your engine is fully sealed, no air leaks before spending money. Again, the Spark plugs will show if you are burning oil because of valve stem seals, read them before moving forward to change seals. If one or more spark plugs show heavy oil deposits those are the cylinders to look at for valve stem seals. If some are bad change them all. They typically age at the same rate in all cylinders.
If you put your car in a shop to get valve stem seals they will tear it down and end up replacing all the gaskets we replaced and in most cases fix your issue because of the new gaskets and Orings most lilely not because of the valve stem seals. I hope this saves some people money. Many on this forum have helped us fix our cars in the past so I hope this returns the favor.
My wife and I just picked up an X5 so now we have 2 X5's in the family but we sold off two really nice cars, our 2002 530i at 89 K and the 2001 525i at 150K.

Extra benefit: The MPG has jumped back to 20 + on Hwy at 75 MPH like it did years ago. Recently with the smoking exhaust and vacuum issue it would barely make 18 MPG on same trip.



Thank You for taking time to respond with great advice, we changed the parts listed except for the valve stem seals. The Spark Plugs that came out looked great, no sign of oil burning, no carbon build up, no deposits.
For this reason we ruled out valve stem seals and focused on the PCV system, I think BMW uses another term but funciton is for Crankcase ventilation.
FYI, did you now that the reason the pan is exposed to full manifold vacuum in these engines has to do with piston rings, racers found they could run lighter tension oil rings on the piston, less friction and more HP if they put vacuum in the oil pan, it helped the oil ring funciton. Another way to maken an engine more efficient. This was new tech to racers in the 90's but now used in pass car engines.

Highlighted in bold: your issue was a vacuum leak all the way. Torn CCV gaskets. Most who have the "smoking issue" don't exhibit mpg loss like you. When there's no mpg loss, and heavy smoking, 99.99% it's the valve stem seals. However, one should applaud your keen observation concerning the mpg loss, because this is one essential element in diagnosing the "smoking". Basically: "smoking" with mpg loss = vacuum leak (could be torn CCV membrane, or any bad seals - and there are quite a few); "smoking" with NO mpg loss = valve stem seals leaking.

[westlotorn]

I received a request today to explain how I fixed my cars without doing the valve stem seals.
The acid test for this is very simple. Pull your vent hoses off the intake manifold, these are right up front by the throttle body.
Look in the hoses and search for oil traces. Shine a pen light into the manifold where the hoses were hooked up. If you see oil in there you have found your problem.
If you have a air leak in your engine it will vacuum oil into the intake manifold.
Valve stem seals can't put oil into your intake manifold. If your intake is wet with oil your problem is not Valve stem seal related.
If you have oil leaking you will also have air being sucked into the manifold. Oil leaks out, air leaks in.

Things to replace to seal the engine back up.
Valve cover gaskets
The Oil Dip stick tube O ring.
The Oil Filler Cap, they are cheap just replace it.
There are two covers on the front of the head, these gaskets can leak, i think these are for the variable valve timing.
The Vacuum pump has two rings that can leak
The variable cam timing controller on each valve cover has O rings that need to be replaced.
If I remember even the spark plug tubes have seals.
I write this 3 or 4 years after after we fixed my son's and his has used zero oil and had zero smoke since. This was a 2005 X5 4.4L.
He actually sold this X5 to his Aunt so we still see it all the time. 40,000 miles later it uses no oil and does not smoke. Now over 160,000 miles.

My son fixed a friends 4.4L X5 and it is good.
My Wife has a 2008 X5 4.8L and I have had issues with the Vac Pump seals causing a leak and idle smoke but that was an easy fix.
I know my X5 with 95K on it a 2008 4.8L will need all the parts listed above soon. It is starting to drip oil very slowly in a couple spots so I know it will start smoking soon.

Note, any time you open an engine up to replace the valve stem seals all the items I mentioned would normally be replaced by a good mechanic so of course a valve stem job fixes the oil burning issue.
I believe 90% or more of these would be fixed without changing the valve stem seals.
It has been a few years now so I know I forgot the terminology for some of the BMW parts, you will need to fill in the blanks but you know what to look for.
If your intake manifold has a lot of oil in it like my son's had you will need to pull it off and clean it. That oil will cause you to keep smoking till it burns all off over the next couple months and will still leave a residue.
We removed my son's manifold and washed it very well inside before re installing.

[B33miller]

Hi I'm lookin for a reliable mechanic to replace my valve seals on a 2006 bmw x5 4.4i, dealer ship quoted outrageous prices, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated