My x5 is around 127k miles and has had a leaking valley pan for the last 1-2 years. Finally got some time to tackle the valley pan and the coolant pipe (wasn't actually leaking in my car yet) last week. My valve steam seals have been leaking for a few years but I didn't have the energy to do that Job this time around after my last experience...

I did my valve cover gaskets and timing gaskets + oil cooler oring 5 years/40k miles ago (around 85k miles) . At the time I did them, I couldn't help but notice that the valve cover gaskets actually seemed fine and all of my leaking was from the timing cover gaskets. A few months later my alternator failed, regulator died, i suspect due to being oil filled from the leaking timing cover gaskets, put a new regulator on it and it's back in service. I suspect my timing cover gaskets were leaking for 2-3 years or 20k miles which is how the alternator bit the bullet.

So, in my experience, the timing cover gaskets seem to only last around 4-5 years and 40-50k miles, but my valve cover gaskets were ok at 85k miles. The thought of doing valve cover gaskets every 4 years is almost enough to want to get rid of the X5.

When I did the valve cover/timing cover gasket/etc job, it turned out to be much bigger than I expected as I fought for over a day to get the drivers side valve cover back on (in the end I think i found a post on here stating the little red inserts put on at the factory for alignment should be removed before reinstalling, which I had not done and i think is why it took so long). It was such a bad experience I was glad I wouldn't need to do it for at least another 7 years. Then recently, the dreaded timing covers were leaking, but my valve covers looked fine. I really couldn't stand the thought of doing the valley pan, water pipe and the vcg's/timing covers all together (let alone the valve stem seals) so I thought I'll just do the valley pan/water pipe and get another 2 years out of this thing with leaking timing covers like last time...

Then I remembered I'd seen one or two posts on the web saying the timing cover gaskets can be replaced on their own but a ton of posts saying this couldn't be done without damaging things.

So, after I finished the valley pan and pipe, i decided to give it a shot to just replace the timing cover gaskets. It was easy and turned out fine, only took about 2 hours per side since i had things in the front end on cooling/fan/etc already dismantled for the other work.

I took some photos along the way to post here to show it's easily done. I made one mistake along the way and stripped the hole in the alternator for the pulley by trying to torque the pulley without a torque wrench and by feel. Usually this goes ok, not this time, luckily i had my old alternator with the new regulator waiting in the wings and will fix this alternator with an M10-1.25 helicoil.

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