Valve cover gaskets leaking...

[SBH]

Which in itself is not surprising as the car has 89000 miles....what is surprising is that they were replaced just 30000 miles ago by the same dealer I bought the car from....

I have ordered a pair of Victor Reinz gaskets...my question is, what sealant to use to ensure they don't start leaking again?

Thank you.

SBH

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[Noodles]

None, just a tiny dab of blue RTV in a few strategic points to hold them in place while remounting the valve covers.

With rubber gaskets the rubber does all the sealing. Using a sealant would cause uneven pressure and then leaks.

The 30000 mile failure is pretty good sign that the tech that did the first job did not clean the mating surfaces very well which is important.

Also there is also a specific pattern to follow to tighten the bolts back on and of course proper torque settings.
I can't look that stuff up until after 1-1-13, but somebody here may already have the data handy.

[SBH]

Thank you, Noodles.

I was also not impressed with the one technician I spoke with at the dealer, when I was doing the pre-purchase inspection with the car up on his lift. He was a shady character, making stuff up as he went along to try to just get me to buy the car.

Just one example, when I pointed out that the rear left muffler was leaking at the flare connection, he said, "oh, Mercedes makes those joints leak on purpose so that water doesn't build up in the exhaust system and make it rust out."

Yeah, right.

So, I am not surprised that his (or another technician's) work was subpar.

The salesmen were nice and gave me the car for a fair price. That's about it.

I live by the adage that "when you want something done right, do it yourself," much to the chagrin of my dear wife, because this means I spend quite a bit of time under our cars

I will do this repair and report back.

Thanks again.

SBH

[Noodles]

Sad to say I have seen the same thing happen at a lot of dealers not just MB.

When I did the higher rated valve springs on my Tek Sid block 4.6 liter Ford racing engine
I used the Fel-Pro kit and they were better than anything Ford or Ford Motorsport had. I
am sure you will find they are great gaskets.

[Brian.C.Pearce]

I just did my valve cover gaskets a couple of months ago and found that the breather covers needed resealing and that it is RTV sealant only on those. I actually bought the Mercedes branded sealant from the dealership as there was plenty in the tube to do both valve covers and both breather covers. The oil passages in the breather were really clogged up on the passenger's side so I was able to get that cleaned up and working again. I don't know the age of your car, mine is a 2004, but the vacuum lines running off of the breathers were so brittle they literally shattered when I pulled them off leaving a chunk of rubber on the hose connection. I made a hasty dash to my local dealership where fortunately they had them in stock and I replaced all the hoses. You might not want to try this job late on a Sunday until you've assessed the condition of those hoses.

[novae500]

Had both of my valve covers done at 27k, car is at 55k and Driver side has a slight seepage from the corner. Will take it in to get done again under warranty. Have warranty til 05/2013

[FLMBenz]

FWIW, my Indy has told me he has seen M112/M113 valve covers warp and seep - not sure if these are isolated instances, but he felt it was worth mentioning so may be worth a quick check once you get them off the engine.

[CLASSW202]

This is a very common issue with all Mercedes V8s, I had a 2002 CLK430 and it was leaking out of the right valve cover and it only had 50k miles. My Cousin has a CLS55 2006 and we looked up the services records and his was done at about 25k miles. I now have an e500 with 60 k miles and it is starting to sweat but nothing major that i can see coming on the spark plugs. Another friend of mine has an 05 e55 with about 65k miles and his is still original and just started to leak too. on the bright side it is a fairly inexpensive kit to buy and labor shouldn't be more than 1.5 to 2 hours at the most.