Leaking Valve cover gasket replaced but still missfires??? Help

GranPappy

GranPappy

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Hey everyone, Im in a bit of a spot here. I started noticeing a misfire when accelerating in D4 and D5 the other day, after some research I ran across some threads about the valve cover gasket leaking oil onto the coils. Took it to the dealership and they found exactly that problem. They replaced the old gasket with the new one and changed 4 coil packs they claimed were burnt out. I picked the car up after work yesterday and had assumed that the problem was fixed. This morning I had a better opportunity to check it out, and while I was driving it to work I felt it misfireing again under heavy acceleration. Needless to say, Im pissed off about the whole ordeal.

Has eny one had eny similar problems with there ls. If its not the leaking oil from the valve covers, what could be causeing the mis. Could it be something as simple as needing new plugs?

Im going to take it back to the dealership and see if they messed something up. Could one of the new coilpack have gone bad?
 
Could be, It never threw a CEL for eny of the misfires, even before I got the gasket replaced. I gessed they could have missed one. I read somewhere about it might be a fuel issue, like something with the pump. If its not a COP or SparkPlug issue than I think that will be were I look next. I had also heard about some sort of transmission fluid issue that someone had on another forum but Im skeptical about that one (well at least until I run out of other options)

Oh before I forget again I have a 2001 LS V8
 
I had the horrid valve cover/coil issue two weeks ago. Took it in they "fixed" it under warranty, two days later? It's leaking oil out the ass and misfiring again.. The problem? They didn't torque down the covers enough and it kept leaking.. that's A+ service from the dealership......... I went through 4 rental cars in the month of december alone lol.

If it's under warranty they will have to provide you with a rental and they can usually fix this issue in 2-3days.
 
Unfortunately its not under warranty enymore, but I do have another car to drive if need be. It only took them a day last time I took it down to them.
 
I just did this job myself (on my mom's lincoln LS) and it is kind of a PITA because of the crappy access for the valve cover bolts and all the :q:q:q:q you have to remove. I've been working on cars a long time and it took me 4+ hours and had me cursing. Getting a torque wrench on some of the bolts is nearly impossible.. but the re-designed gaskets seem like it would be hard to get them not to seal correctly if installed right on the head with a clean surface.

I can see a dealer tech rushing it and not torquing the bolts correctly. If they didn't change the spark plugs that could be an issue as well. If the coils were not firing correctly it could cause the plugs in there to be fouled/bad. Seems obvious to change the plugs but at the dealer they usually do the minimum instructed.

Oh yeah.. also check to make sure that the fuel line is fully seated (one over the driver side head) I was in a rush and didn't seat the line all the way and it would cut out under load.
 
If you took it to the dealer and told them to replace the valve cover gaskets and the bad coils, you probably don't have much recourse with them as to warranty for what they did. They did exactly what you told them...unless they missed a coil. But if you took it to them and told them to fix the miss and check the gaskets for leaks, then they haven't done that and they need to stand behind their work! If more parts are involved, you may have to buy those, but the labor should be on them. Then, if they find the problem to be totally unrelated to coils, the fun really starts because did they really need to replace any coils to begin with?? I have always preached to be very careful about what you request when taking a car in for repair. If you tell them just what you want done...and they do it...and it doesn't fix it, you bought it. But if you tell them it has a problem and would they fix it, then all the diagnosis and repair is their responsiblility...not yours.
 
I went back down yesterday and talked with the service manager and the machanic who worked on my car and they were pretty good about hearing me out. There gunna do the diagnostic and all that jazz for free so Ill only have to pay them if something else unrelated to the work they have already done needs fixin. If the problem is simple enuff, Im just gunna take it home and fix it myself. Im supposed to take it back on friday morning and do a road test with the machanic this time to show him the misfire. He said that he did a road test himself after he had replaced the gasket and coils and he didnt notice enything, witch I can understand because Im only noticeing the mis when Im stomping the gas pedal hard, I would assume that because the dealership is in an area were the speed limit is fairly slow, that he didnt stomp it hard enuff to get it to miss before it changed gears. At this point Im thinking its one of the COP they didnt replace or maybe the plugs.

When I was talking with the mechanic he showed me the 4 old coil packs that he had pulled out and they were covered in oil so Im pretty sure they were not just trying to pull one over on me.

Thanks for the feed back everyone, Im hopeing this problem will just be the COP\ leaky gasket problem, but if its something else I'll keep posting about it here incase enyone else is going through the same thing.
 
Its all fixed now. Turned out that the machanic did mis a bad coil. Replaced it and now she runs perfect.

lump this thread with all the other ones related to the leaky Valve cover gasket and burnt out coil paks.
 
Leaking valve covers are not the only reason the COPs go bad, the OEM parts must be a POS given apparent their failure rate.

My '00 LS has just over 40K miles on it, it's been misfiring for a while, mainly when warmed up. It lit a CEL a month or so ago, then after several short trips that didn't allow it to warm up to the point of misfiring, the CEL went off. Well the other day the CEL came back on, so I decided to check into it yesterday under the warm weather.

I had replaced my V/C gaskets 1-1/2 yrs ago, so I highly doubted it was COPs saturated w/ oil. Sure enough, all 8 of my coils were dry as a bone. So I took my DMM to them to see if any of them measured differently than the others. All 8 primary sides measured ~0.5 - 0.7 ohms, and 6 of the 8 secondary sides measured 5.04Kohms, 1 was 5.10K, and the other was 5.40K. So I figured those two were bad (they were in the rear 2 cylinder locations, don't ask me what those cyl#s are........ see my other thread). So I made some quick calls around town to see who had coils. Only ones who had them in stock was the Lincoln dealership (1 in stock @ $100/ea), and NAPA (2 in stock @ $56/ea). Picked up the 2 NAPA coils, slapped them in, but I still have a misfire. I did take it in to have the CEL code pulled today, "Misfire Cyl #6" (kicking myself for not doing this BEFORE I dug into it yesterday). So figuring the 2 COPs I replaced are not really bad, planning on swapping one of them for cyl#6 and the next oppertunity.
 
The service manager at the dealership had said that the number one problem they have with the LS are the coils failing, and not always because of oil being on them. I could have swore that he had also said that they used the same type coils in one of the other cars but that they didnt fail nearly as often as they do in the LS.... go figure
 
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