Water Separator victim ?

[Thom]

Help. I hink I am a victim of the blown valve cover gasket/water separator problem.
I started the car, drove about 2 kms and the car (2002 X5 3.0) came to a stop. I lifted the hood and there is oil all over the pass side of the engine compartement and inner whel area. After 1 1/2 days, got it towed to my driveway. I ran my OBD reader,,,and no codes. The engine doesnt turn over. Not that I want it to run because there is no oil showing on the dipstick.
Questions: shouldnt there be codes ?
is there a safety mechanism and since the oil is low it stops it from turning over ?
Thanks,
Tom

[flatlander]

If you're driving along and this failure happens, you'll know it by the "low oil warning" annunciation in the vehicle, plus the smoke from the oil gushing onto the hot parts of the engine. There may be smoke too.

It's best to pull over and let the engine cool down.

[Thom]

Yah. But in my case...no warning and HAD to pull over because the engine pretty much stopped.

[Weasel]

Does it crank but not start, or not crank at all... if the first, you probably have all the coils covered in oil stopping it from sparking, and likely a large amount of oil in the intake manifold as a result from the failure. If it is the second, the engine is likely hydrolocked from oil in the cylinders that went through the intake.

If that is the case you'd be better off bringing it to the dealer, unless you are ready to tackle a decent sized job.