I have been told that I have a valve cover leak. Will it harm the motor if I continue to drive it? How much does it cost to repai? The model is 2000 Nissan Xterra

This is a social web site

You have to know there are no set prices for anything

You ask the mechant or repair shop of your choice

Have to start somewhere & have to make the repair

check behind valve cover while motor running, it will be smoking pretty good right where valve cover sits

Hi there,

The orientation of your transmission case (direction of the trans case cover) will determine if the trans can be worked on whilst still in the car, or whether it needs to be removed,.

If the transmission cover (which looks like an engine SUMP cover) is facing the ground, then the trans can be easily serviced while still in the car.

Behind the trans cover is what is called the Valve Body - this houses the critical components and usually the solenoids are all in there too.

Providing your vehicle's fault codes have been correctly extracted and have identified the correct solenoid, it will involve dismantling the trans cover & valve body to gain access to the solenoids.

I recommend you phone around various transmission specialists (usually a Dodge franchise would do this quicker) and ask them to quote you how much for:

1) cost of solenoid
2) cost of labour (ie how many hours)

I imagine the Labour cost is what where most of this expense is coming from, so I recommend you choose someone who has a working knowledge of the Dodge Caravan transmission.

Allowing someone who is unfamiliar with this model, to work on your vehicle, could end up costing you more labour than it should.

Cheers,



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noroious for idle air control valve coils shorting and un fortunately destroying the drivers in engine computer that control them.could get real expensive real fast.address and rectify immediately if computer isnt already damaged!

All BMW V8 motor have leak oil problem on bad gasket in valve cover. When remove plastic cover where is "BMW" in to camshaft &valve cover,its leak visible where is ignition coil on sparkplugs.

Need to know what type of leak? Motor oil or Transmission oil ?
Where is it leaking from Rear main gasket, Valve cover gasket(s), cam or crak shaft seal,oil pan gasket. etc The I'll give you a price

don't use 20w50 that is too heavy an oil for that motor. the most i would use is like a 10w40 and that is a last resort. your valves need adjusting or the hydraulic lash adjusters may be gunked up. there is a chemical called auto-rx (search web) that could help you out. just follow the directions for it. the only other oil seals i can think of are oil pan gasket, oil filter gasket, rear main seal, valve cover gasket.

if the leak is actually coming from the head gasket the only way to repair it is to replace the head gasket which involves removing the engine, pulling the valve covers off and much much more... probably not anything your going to want to do in your driveway... if you arn't losing any oil or coolant and have no check engine light on, i don't imagine that it is a very big leak at all. i would continue to drive the car as usual and just watch the leak- if it gets worse you should have the heads done. just remember to check your fluids... it can be very costly to put head gaskets on.

no ohter reason for smoke comes to mind under the hood
sounds like maybe the valve cover gaskets 20 to 30 dollars here in canada
not very hard to replace take off the valve cover take out old gasket clean the area good and put new gasket in tighten valva cover down usally untill you see the gasket compress a little being carefull not to tighten to much and either break a bolt ot strip it

Who ever told you it was the Valve cover gaskets was correct. On the valve cover gasket around where the spark plug goes down though the head there is a seal made onto the valve cover gasket called the spark plug well seals. when replacing the valve cover gasket it will come with these seals and it will take care of your oil leaking into spark plug holes. Hope this has helped and if you need anymore assistance I would love to help.