Need help!!
 

So I have a Q7 with the 4.2 L. I had a very rough idle a couple of weeks ago, almost to the point it felt and sounded like it was running on 4 cylinders. I took it in to the shop and they said it had mis fire codes on 5 of the 8 cylinders. They pulled out the spark plugs I guess and they were covered in oil. Their solution was to change the right and left valve cover gaskets because they said that was probably where the oil was leaking down in from. For some reason I am not sure that sounds probable. Can't the intake valve guilds leak oil down into the engine with they are worn out? What do you guys think here? Oh, and just an FYI, it has been running fine since this happened. It ran funny for that 1 trip and then when I turned it off and re-started it, it ran fine, and is still running fine right now. Not sure if that matters.

Yep they are correct. A tell tale sign of valve cover gasket leakage is when you have oil on your plugs. That should be pretty well troubleshooting 100, when attempting to resolve this issue.

I just had them re-explain it to me. The coil tubes, at least a few of them are completely full of oil. Anyone know how difficult it is to replace the gaskets? I actually already have them. I ordered them around a year ago when I thought they were the cause of my major oil leak on the ground It ended up being my oil filter housing gasket so I did not bother. Is it worth paying the shop $1,000 to replace them? They said they would change out my plugs, and do a full fuel system clean as part of that. Thoughts? If it is just time consuming, pull out the coils, put the covers off, clean everything, put the new gaskets on, bolt the covers back on to proper specs, it does not sound too hard. However if I have to move other things out of the way, I might want skip and have it done.

It took me a couple of hours to do it...but then again it's isn't my first rodeo. I think the book rate maybe double that. Joe, leverage the SEARCH function and you'll find plenty of threads on replacing valve covers.

https://www.audiworld.com/forums/a6-...a6-c6-2857892/

Thank you sir. I was trying to find a step by step specific to the Q7. I have done several BMW's valve covers myself with very little issues. The shop still has it and I was not sure if there were things in the way of just removing them and doing the normal labor.