Its rare coil paks go bad but it does happen? Test the coils ohm ratings but also do the old plug to ground spark test.

Did you put in new plugs?

I replaced the plugs. How can I easily test the resistance on the coil pack?

It tested the 3rd and 4th coil pack. The 4th stayed a steady 1.1 ohms but the 3rd continued to bounce between 1.0 and 1.6. Is this normal? Does this mean this coil pack is failing?

So I dropped off the X5 at the dealership yesterday. I heard back this morning and they claim the misfires are from bad timing case gaskets. Can these gaskets cause misfires? I would think if these gaskets were bad, I would see puddles of oil and low oil levels, but I don't. The cement under the care is clean.

By the way, they want to charge me $1,740 to replace these gaskets!

i would guess that if the gaskets were worn and the parts loose then yes you can have a problem with timing. but again i would have to assume that there would in fact be a visible leak... but maybe you cannot see it as it drips onto the cross reinforcement plate.

dude,
you're alot braver than me. i wouldn't touch that job with a 10 ft pole. good luck

when you replaced the plugs, did you check to see if they were burning oil?

Last year my 2001 4.4 started losing alot of power. Plugs showed the valve gaskets needed to be replaced. Forget doing just one side. My dealer tried getting away with that. A week later, he still had to do the other side. My point being, if you got the valve covers off, that's the toughest part, especially the driver's side. Just a thought.

I replaced the valve cover gaskets when I changed the oil separator, but the problem still exist. I don't think the dealership did much analysis, because I told them I replaced the valve cover gaskets but they included the cost in their estimate. I am going to remove the throttle body, clean it and replace the throttle body gaskets.

Update:

It turns out to be two bad coil packs. Also, two weeks later, two more coil packs went bad. So of the course of a month, I had 4 coil packs go bad.

Well ... good to see you found your problem. At least it didn't cost you $1800 the dealer wanted - at least I hope not.