Oil Leak in Spark Plug Compartment?

W

White_Hair

Premium Member
Premium
Hi Guys,


I am not having much luck with my car recently. :sad:

I just changed my plugs at my friend's garage yesterday and I found that there are 2 plugs has oil on them.

First one is the one on the passenger side at the very front of the engine. The plug only has some oil on the tip.

The second one is on the passenger side close to the fire wall. That one has oil all over it.

There is no oil leak externally. What I have seen are all internal leak.

Has anyone had this happened before? Are these covered under the 6 year engine warranty?


Thanks for any input. :smile:
 
The one with oil on the tip is the one to worry about.

The one with oil all over it is probably the valve cover, they are known to leak in the spark plug gasket which is built into the valve cover. So the whole valve cover needs to be replaced.

Get it to the dealer on the oil tipped one.
 
rookie said:
The one with oil on the tip is the one to worry about.

The one with oil all over it is probably the valve cover, they are known to leak in the spark plug gasket which is built into the valve cover. So the whole valve cover needs to be replaced.

Get it to the dealer on the oil tipped one.
Click to expand...

Thanks Rookie for the information.


I have the new plugs just installed for a day. I hope the dealer can find the little oil on the one at the front. Hope they will honor the warranty.

Do they have to take my plenum out to get this fixed? Does installation of plenum spacer void the warranty?
 
Last edited:
that's exactly what happened to my car few months back, went to dealer and they replaced the valve cover for me. after that, still found there's oil on 2 of the spark plugs and also found smoke coming out of my exhaust, so the dealer decided to do a engine oil consumption test and found my engine burning engine oil...................
they replaced the whole engine for me under the powertrain warranty which is 5yrs/ 70000 miles.
 
gsu_dy said:
that's exactly what happened to my car few months back, went to dealer and they replaced the valve cover for me. after that, still found there's oil on 2 of the spark plugs and also found smoke coming out of my exhaust, so the dealer decided to do a engine oil consumption test and found my engine burning engine oil...................
they replaced the whole engine for me under the powertrain warranty which is 5yrs/ 70000 miles.
Click to expand...

Cool. Thanks for the info. I hope I am that lucky. But do I have to take off my plenum spacer to have the warranty or are they going to take off the plenum spacer to do the valve cover fix?
 
It does require to remove the whole plenum to reach the vavle cover but they won't diassemble ur plenum and the sapcer, they will just remove the plenum as a whole. The plenum spacer itself won't affect or cause the leaking of the vavle cover or not. I left mine on when they replace the valve cover and even the whole engine. So it is just non sense if ur dealer bitch about the plenum spacer~:mad:
 
Last edited:
gsu_dy said:
It does require to remove the whole plenum to reach the vavle cover but they won't diassemble ur plenum and the sapcer, they will just remove the plenum as a whole. The plenum spacer itself won't affect or cause the leaking of the vavle cover or not. I left mine on when they replace the valve cover and even the whole engine. So it is just non sense if ur dealer bitch about the plenum spacer~:mad:
Click to expand...

But Not everyone has a Cheryl at their local dealership......:wink:
 
Psiclne said:
But Not everyone has a Cheryl at their local dealership......:wink:
Click to expand...

hahahaha...........that's TRUE!!!!!:laugh:
but then when I talked to technician about what aftermarket parts they need to put back when replacing my eninge, he didn't care also.

ultimately, depends on the dealership........................:tongue:
 
gsu_dy said:
hahahaha...........that's TRUE!!!!!:laugh:
but then when I talked to technician about what aftermarket parts they need to put back when replacing my eninge, he didn't care also.

ultimately, depends on the dealership........................:tongue:
Click to expand...

I really hope they can replace the engine to fix the internal leak. The oil leak at front is only quite minor, don't know if they can detect the smoke from the exhaust unless they have some computerized machine to do that.

How do they remove the whole plenum without disassembling it from the top?

Anyone knows what screws were used by the original plenum without the spacer? I think I lost the screws. I probably will need to put the spacer back before the dealership starts to blame everything on top of me. Majority of the dealers in Vancouver are mostly a-holes.
 
Last edited:
the reason I found out there's smoke from the exuahst was because I changed the catalytic converters to downpipes. It is hard for them to do any test useless you do what I did.
 
Last edited:
gsu_dy said:
the reason I found out there's smoke from the exuahst was because I changed the catalytic converters to downpipes. It is hard for them to do any test useless you do what I did.
Click to expand...

Man, wish I have such setup to ask them check for the smoke. Now, I can only betting my luck and see if Joey can get me the required screws for the plenum and the gaskets.

I love my FX, but just the services provided by the dealership here are just not acceptable.
 
good luck to u bro~:wink:
if ur dealership really bitch about the plenum spacer, maybe u should take it off..........Because the valve cover cost two hundreds sth US$ if I remeber correctly..................

I tried a few dealerships before I found Cheryl in Metro Infiniti which take good care of lot of us here in :iS:!!!
 
Last edited:
Man, sometimes I really wish I live in California area. Especially you guys in Cali area have access to the most abundant resources for car stuff.

It's a waste to buy good cars in Vancouver, road sucks and service sucks. :k:
 
I read this thread last night so I started checking plugs because I was concerned about an unusual noise I here every now and then. well after about 45min+ taking of the harness and getting to the coil packs I found that plugs 3 and 6 had oil on them so I'll be taking my ride in this morning. Dam Gina....maybe they'll change out my engine, I doubt that but it would be nice. lol...
 
Deecarp said:
I read this thread last night so I started checking plugs because I was concerned about an unusual noise I here every now and then. well after about 45min+ taking of the harness and getting to the coil packs I found that plugs 3 and 6 had oil on them so I'll be taking my ride in this morning. Dam Gina....maybe they'll change out my engine, I doubt that but it would be nice. lol...
Click to expand...

Hope we can all get new engines. :.smile:
 
OK I took my FX in and this is what I found out. this is a service that is done as needed under warranty. 5yrs-70,000, as some of us have experienced recently. Honestly there is no way to detect this unless it has been on going for some time and you are burning oil servely and smoking, or you've done what GSU DY happened to do. or change your plugs and stumble accross it.

I was hearing a slightly different sound from the idle, almost a knocking sound. which now I think I can attribute to the oil on the plugs, and the plugs not firing properly.

The dealer is saying it normal with infiniti to have PCV valve wear, along with the valve covers, thus you get the internal leakage. So if you wait to change your plus at 105K you'll never know until then. So do like some others here at IS that are FI or not, make frequent checks or random inspection. For me the clue was the additional sound I was getting, a small decrease in MPG as well it. I say that because I was averaging between 19.5 -21 mpg hwy sometime a lil more. my milage dropped off, and I had the noise that may have been indicators to pick up that something is wrong. but it could have been an indicator for a number of things bad gas as well who really knows. it could be weather conditions, heavy foot etc.... overall IMO the FX wasn't running as efficent as what I was use to feeling it. I'm out of my factory warranty but I have an extended one that will cover it at least I hope so . the valve covers, gasket were about two hundred plus each side to include some other small parts would be around $600+, another $600 for labor so it is not cheap to repair the problem. for those with out extended plans if your inclined to turn a wrench it'll be cheaper. I f I have to turn a wrench or two I will.

Thanks to White Hair for bringing this up had he not, I might not have checked. but due to what I was hearing myself I decided to inspect my plugs and wow guess what I found. the same issue as white Hair.... By the way how many miles do you have on your ride. I'm at 70,700 now.
 
Last edited:
Man your Ground Wire kit really messed up your ride!

sorry to hear about the trouble.....the G35 Forum's already found this problem a while ago. Everyone should check this out before your 5/ 70k warranty is over.
 
White_Hair said:
Hope we can all get new engines. :.smile:
Click to expand...

I could only wish for that to happen. Like they said earlier that depends on the dealership and with the one I'm at, I don't thinks so. there not really mod friendly. I mean they installed my TQ but when they thought something was wrong with it, they were like we can't cover that.they drained the fuilds,disconnected and re-connected harnesses and it been months no issues. so it makes me wonder in the first place are these guys good at what they do. they seem really nice but I do get mixed singles for real. the closet dealership other than the one I'm at is in Sac.and I don't want everyone working on my ride. me and the dealer is it. Hell I hate for them to wash it to be honest.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top