For those of you that have done/seen this before,

I had a local mech guy who is good with audis say that it might just be a bolt is loose. I've had it for 2 years (45k-58k) and driven it soft.

Think this is a possiblity and new gasket is not needed?
I saw in the Bently that the 11 bolts have a torque and sequence spec and wondered if this might be the case.

Not sure if any owners before had work done on this either.

 

Your going to need a new one. VW/Audi always, always, always has valve cover gaskets go bad. I do them all the time.

 

Yea i figured, that's what my back up mech said too.
Thanks for the 2/3 consensus.

THink I'm dropping the guy that thinks it might be a loose bolt because he failed on an oil pan job on another car that is leaking now.

 

where is it leaking? If its on the drivers side, its most likely the crappy moon shaped peice that is prone to leaking. You just need a new valve cover gasket and the half moon peice and your good. Its like $45 in parts from ecs and takes about an hour+ to change

 

Wouldn't hurt to take a wrench around and just make sure all the bolts are equally snug before you start buying parts. turning a wrench is free.

I had a Jeep at one point with a leak so bad, it looked like someone had pressure washed the engine bay with motor oil. Had a shop tell me it was too much blow by, and it was blowing out the valve cover gasket. AKA the engine was shot (his words). Funny, considering I was missing a valve cover breather and therefore had a 1/2 exposed hole. Must be A LOT of blow by.

Turns out, all the valve cover nuts on the back half of the straight six were finger tight. New gasket, proper torque, and [that] problem solved.

 

Yea I believe it is the drivers side.
Waiting to get it back after they put new gauge cluster in.
Stupid dealership guys busted off the 1/4 turn screws holding the engine cover on.
And...they don't have them so they have to get them in and mail them to me.
That place scares me.

Found a shop that will do the gasket for $135.

Hey cincy if you want to do it for less?
If it's worth it to you let me know.
I don't have the tools and I'm only 1/2 mech. inclined.

 

Just shoot me a PM, im sure I can get a few of us together to BS and get the change done in no time.

 

Takes an hour.

 

with a plastic scraper, hex wrench, a (10?)mm socket, and gasket + RTV.

 

Well Cincy helped me with the gasket replacement. Actually he did most of it ha.
And from the looks in his eyes, he didn't look like he wanted to see another 225 anytime soon lol. jk, thanx a bunch Nathan.

Not a simple matter replacing gasket on this it seems to me.
The biggest hurdles were the heat shield fastener strips. They were screwed on back of
cover with small torx screws but had some sort of factory locktight Glue on them.
We had to chisel them (Older brother's technique) to get them to turn.
Also it's probably not a good time to try this one first time without a Bentleys to help piece the hose puzzle back together for reassembly.

The cover may even have only needed tightned but we were safer than sorry with replacement. I'm good.