You said it doesn't smoke right? How many miles are on the engine? I would check the cam positions sensor (thats what its called right?) That could cause misfires. I just think the car would be smoking a noticeable amount if it was causing a misfire. Or is it a crank position sensor... Idk if we have both or which one controls spark.

 

yea no smoke....what is normal compression on our cars? is that off enough to cause my car to be running the way it is?

 

#2 is low although not as low as i was expecting, the engine should be able to run on those pressures, although you have some signs of wear. well i dont owe you $10 because #2 is a bit low, but you dont owe me $10 because compression isnt your main problem. normal compression should be around 180-190 i think.

theres only a few places that oil could have come from... it got sucked in thru the intake from somewhere, but that was ruled out. leaky head gasket, but you would have less compression if that were the case. leaky valve guide, which is still possible.

i would say find out where the oil is coming from before you go trying to figure out why its running like crap. most likely they are related. if you stop the oil and its still running like crap then you can look at other stuff.

 

What is making you think that its oil on the plugs? Just curious because I stated before if its running rich it can cause black carbon build up on the plugs almost the same as oil.

 

when i pulled the original plugs out...a couple had oil on them..i believe #1 was pretty bad and #2 had it on it....#3 and 4 i believe were fine....although none of them looked as bad as any in those pictures...

i bit the bullet and went to autozone and bought a scanner (i know i wasnt supposed to, oh well i want my car back)

p0300
p0302
p0301

im going to find what those mean and ill be back...

 

I don't think you should ever have fresh oil on the tips to be honest. Pull one now and see if its still that way if not then it got there when you were pulling them out from a valve cover leak. If its still there then I am very curious as to how lol.

p0300 random/multiple misfire detected
p0301 cylinder 1 misfire
p0302 cylinder 2 misfire

 

at this point i think that is definitely the case i must have gotten oil on the plugs when i pulled them out originally. new plugs done have oil on them and when i had the valve cover off today I pulled plug#1 and shined a flashlight down the hole...it was dry...i think im done for the day....ive neglected football long enough...thank yall for your help...i think the next step is to swap some wires around to see if thats the problem...

 

Ok, so my wife's car is having CEL blinking issues at HARD acceleration. It would stop blinking and turn off after 15 secs or so. Normal acceleration did not blink the CEL. So I decided to check it out... WoooooooW! Spark plug hole #2 was completely filled with oil! I was surprised that thing didn't catch on fire. So I sucked out the oil but I didn't take the spark plug out yet (I sold my M3 which had the spark plug removal tool!!!).

So my question is, from reading above, it looks like we need a valve cover gasket. How hard is this to do? And roughly how much should I expect to pay for the valve cover gasket?

Many thanks....

 

valve cover gaskets are pretty cheap, without looking im going to say under 30 bucks. and you can change them yourself, its just a bunch of bolts.

i could probably do it in 15 minutes. even if you have no idea what your doing, just look around the valve cover to see where the edges are, and remove any bolt or screw you think is holding it down. you should be able to do it in under an hour, and that includes a 10 min. break for a beer in the middle. go look on ecstuning.com

ps- just dont drop anything in there while its off! dirt, sand, metal shavings, screws, anything. it would be like a surgeon leaving some staples inside your stomach.

 

Thanks...from searching and reading, looks like some dealers are charging 5 hours labor into it? I am not seeing 5 hours there. I assume that they probably quoted for HEAD gasket and not VALVE gasket? I can see the head gasket job being more of a pain.

You are right, $26 for a "Victor Reinz" and $36 for OEM. Who the hell is Victor Reinz?