M54 Engine Vanos Seals

[PCH BMW]

Originally Posted by StartX5

I just finished vanos seals rebuild today. It took ~4.5 hours to complete the entire job. Inner vanos seals rubber cooked and feeling like hard plastic.

StartX5. Just wondering if you recall your odometer reading when you completed your Vanos seals project?

I have the same 2004, X5, 3.0i, M54 engine and I'm sitting on 90K miles. I'm preparing for a valve cover seal replacement job to kill a tiny, but seriously annoying, oil leak from my valve cover (just over the exhaust, so the drip hits the hot pipe and turns into smoke and a complaint from the wifeepoo). It's been there for over a year now likely due to a failing oil separator that I replaced a few month back. Enjoyed your most excellent post on the valve cover gasket - a shot of a hot chick or a good joke is the only missing element

Bottom line, since the valve cover job looks like 40% of the Vanos job, and I have 90K miles on the engine, should I just pony up the time and kill the Vanos seal job? Bonus round question - it appears that the Vanos position sensor will also be in the clear, should I just swap it as well?

PS - the small cost of the parts is not an concern since I value driving piece of mind and one less thing for the wife to mention (not that she can't notice other things "wrong" with the X5 and then ask for a new one all in the same breath - normally triggered by a sighting of a new X5 which seem to be the official taxi here).

Thanks in advance for any advice. Mahalo,