I know this has been talked about, but I am asking about my specific situation where I have very little oil. Just got a 2004 coupe, A/T. Read the forums and decided to change the spark plugs to check for the oil leak problem. One spark plug chamber (#3, Middle passenger's side) had some oil, but it was very little (1ml max, was able to clean it out with some qtips attached to a stick). My question is: is this something that I should be worried about? Spark plugs have never been changed before, and it only accumulated this much oil in 67k.

(also, I looked at the ignition coil plug #3, and there seemed to be some gunk on the shaft that looked like it was breaking the seal; I cleaned it off and reinstalled it.)

Thanks in advance.

 

just clean it up and put some sealant around the tubes for a temp fix. otherwise you will be putting valve covers on cuz thats the only way to get those new tube seals.

 

^ a vendor on here started to sell the gaskets I believe.

 

You're still at 67k, you can do it under warranty. The warranty expires after 70k.

 

What he said + yes, r&d factory sells the gasket kit.

 

Get the dealership to fix it under warranty. They did mine.

 

Thanks all, ended up being out of warranty by 3 months, but convinced dealer to cover it. However, I have another issue now. I have been driving around for 3 weeks since the repair, and decided the other day to check the chambers again. The same chamber had oil, but in trace amounts that were barely visible. I was also unable to track back any leak trail in the chamber, something I was able to do before the repair ( I checked immediately after the repair and the chamber was bone dry). When I went to put the ignition coil back into the chamber, I met some resistance; it was like there was positive pressure in the chamber pushing back. After doing some googling, I read that sometimes exposure of the ignition coil to oil can cause it to swell.

Is this what is happening in my case? Is the trace oil just oil that was retained by the swollen ignition coil? I highly doubt the valve cover/gasket assembly has started to leak again. If it is the ignition coil, would replacing it solve my problems? Thanks again.

 

But the gasket kit requires you to either drill into your valve cover or trade in the valve covers for theirs.

I guess if you're out of warranty and don't want to shell out $700+, this could be an option. Not sure how much cheaper it would be.

 

Valve cover leak issue is fixed, but any ideas about the ignition coil swelling mentioned above in my second post? Thanks.

 

Luck you, your dealership must be a hell 0f a lot better than my local dealership. I go up there tell them dumba$$ that there is oil in #6 and #5, and the guy says yea bring it up here we will take care of it. So then they call me say, well its 4 months past the year limit we cant help ya, by the way you owe us $96 for a diagnosis. So basically i went up there told them im not paying them for something i already TOLD THEM WAS WRONG! The dick head could have looked my production date up on the phone, just basically tried to get my $96. Well to bad for him and after 5 mins with the service manager that bill went away. I call infiniti customer care today and started a report to see about getting my work done since my mileage is only 62k.

 

ShaneH85: with you luck with Infiniti. They gave me trouble over the phone about the time limit too, I had to go in and speak to the service manager. Only thing that worked in my favor was that I knew one of the service techs from school. I think what sucks is the time cutoff; most people don't check their plugs unless they want to replace them earlier. The only reason I checked mine was from reading the articles on this site.