Using Aftermarket gaskets

[Mdavidthomas]

Anyone use aftermarket gaskets for the oil filter housing or intake manifold gaskets? Are they just as good as OE (corrected from OEM)?

BMW gaskets seem to be about 2 - 3 x higher?

I see the following brands:

elring
URO
Hamburg Technic
rein Automotive
ajusa
Victor Reinz

Also, anyone use one of the aftermarket valve covers to replace pvc/ccv system with issues?

Thanks in advance,

mdavidthomas

[ard]

dunno. But "BMW" is OE

OEM is likely one of the mfgs you listed...

[Mdavidthomas]

I had another question as well:

Last week while looking for oil leaks, I think I inadvertently left the Oil fill cap loose. When my wife came home after a ~20 mile trip, the oil fill cap was laying down near the steering and front drive shafts. The hood and right side of engine bay (turbo/exhaust side was covered in oil). I tried degreasing the engine and I removed all the plastic shields/inner fender wells to clean up all the oil. Since there is no dipstick and I didn't know how much oil was lost. I decided to do an oil change to make sure that I had enough oil before cranking the engine to check the oil. I estimated after draining the oil that I may have lost up to 3/4 of a quart of oil so I feel there was no damage done to the engine. I then started to worry that the CCV check valve on the manifold side may have been allowing boost pressure to pressurize the crankcase and that may have been a cause for all the oil. After the cleanup, I saw traces of oil coming from CCV/PCV vent tube to fresh air intake tube and oil was coming from around oil fill cap. This could have been residual oil left over from after cleanup. I am hoping that a pressurized crankcase is not is not my issue but I thought that was a lot of oil that came out of the valve cover fill hole. Over the last few weeks, I have been smelling burning oil when stopped while driving and last night after the cleanup I had oil smoke coming from right rear of valve cover area.

Anyone have issues with a pressurized crankcase causing oil to come out of gaskets, pcv/ccv vent tube to fresh air intake, or valve cover?

Any suggestions?

mdavidthomas

[Baby Unicorn Taco]

Sounds like your oil level never got low enough to cause any damage to anything. In the future you can check your oil level in the iDrive rather than completing an oil change. You may have had some debris/dirt enter your engine so the oil change you did complete was a good safety measure anyway. I can’t see you having any long term issue if the X5 runs fine now. Leaving the oil cap off will throw oil all over so you may see and smell that oil for a little while before it burns off or dissipates. I had an X5 idle without the oil cap on for 10 minutes. Made a mess but never created an issue with CCVs.


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[noelskii]

I used Aftermarket OFGH/ Oil Cooler gaskets about 6-7 months ago and now one of them is leaking again, I think it's the oil cooler gasket.

I used a BMW brand gasket for valve cover.

[blndweasel]

I used Ajusa gaskets for my intake, they seem fine.

I have used both Victor Reinz and OE valve cover gaskets. I'm not sure I can tell the difference. The key is if you're re-using existing valve covers to THOROUGHLY degrease the gasket channel before pressing the new one in, then it won't fall out during installation.

As far as going aftermarket on the valve covers themselves, I understand where that logic comes from ($$$) but I personally wasn't willing to take any chances because I didn't want to have to deal with replacing them again. Knowing a valve cover swap would take me approx 6 hours start to finish, I decided the difference in cost was worth it because it would save me that time. I "charge" myself $60 an hour when determining what my time is worth.

[rbryantaz]

There are better than OE versions of the oil filter housing gaskets on a lot of bmw engines.

For the 4.8i oil filter thermostat housing MAHLE B32856 Fluoroelastomer is a "Viton type" material and should actually be better than the original BMW one.

This is for the oil thermostat version of the bracket that has the divider in it. This is the one that is needed for my 2008 4.8i. The older style "alternator bracket" version is a different part number on the e53.

Rockauto has the best price I have seen on them.

I think bavauto has viton gaskets for some other engines. They do have the M54 gasket but I am not sure about the N52.

-Rich

[noelskii]

I used Mahle for the oil filter housing and oil cooler gasket 6 months ago

[Mdavidthomas]

Ended up going with BMW gaskets from ECS Tuning. Replaced oil filter housing, oil cooler, intake manifold, and valve cover gaskets. Currently, I smell no burning oil and the spots in the garage have stopped. Ended breaking the coolant overflow nipple when leveraging to get the air cleaner box off ($130 mistake), and the coolant hose ($50) from the head (2 bolts to left of oil cooler) was broken off at the o-ring groove. Did coolant flush at same time and used the BMW coolant and the schwaben coolant vacuum fill tool. Tool worked great! Including tools spent ~$550 on parts. I am guessing much less than Hendrick BMW service would have wanted to do the same.

mdavidthomas