How much $$$ to replace a valve cover gasket?
 

I took it into the Suby dealer yesterday after I noticed it was consistently leaving a puddle about the size of a quarter. The dealer said a valve cover gasket is leaking. The dealer wants $480 which includes parts and labor. The labor rate is $72/hour. Does this price sound right? How many hours of labor do you think it will take? The gasket itself is less than $50, right?

That sounds a little steep to me... Is there a shop near you other than the dealer that specializes in Subarus or works on SVX's regularly? There is a place here in PA that I go to that does SVX's regularly, and only services subarus. THey are consistently 2/3 the price of the dealer. Sometimes even less.

-Mike

I have some other options. I just wanted to get a feel for the local dealer as I have yet to meet them. As you know this car rather well...I had them look at the passenger side fog light which had a grounding problem and they mentioned the right front had been hit at some point. They did say the car was in great shape overall.

im intrested in this post also i need to do mine some time .its leaking but nothing major, how much should it be. is there anything else that should be done while doing the gaskets maybe spark plugs and all

normally i could do this my self but svx are not made to work on for some reason, i can rebuild enignes and tranny but svx are a hassel,

Parts . OEM Part . Price


Valve Cover Gasket
.
. Gasket
. .
. . No. 1
. . .
. . . 17 - Right . 13270AA031 . $20.95

. . .
. . . 17 - Left . 13272AA031 . $20.95

. .
. . No. 2
. . .
. . . 17 - Right . 13294AA020 . $7.95

. . .
. . . 17 - Left . 13293AA011 . $7.95

. .
. . No. 3
. . .
. . . 17 - Right . 13294AA030 . $7.95

. . .
. . . 17 - Left . 13293AA020 . $7.95


Labor . SkillLevel . Warr. . Std.


Valve Cover Gasket
.
. Replace
. .
. . One Bank . B . 0.8 . 1.1

. .
. . Both Banks . B . 1.5 . 2.1

Thanks for the info, Beav. I just contacted my 2nd option shop and they (or there computer) list it as 1.4 hr's labor per side. So with that in mind I could get both sides done parts/labor for around $275 it appears at $68/hr.

interesting...hmmmmm

A lot of places (esp. drealers) are operating on 'what the market will bear' pricing. Too much of it going on in all sectors as far as I'm concerned. Too many people just say "duh...O.K." and roll over.

FYI: If you can replace the plugs yourself, then you can probably do the valve cover gaskets yourself too. I did the driver's side on mine and there wasn't any pain or special tools involved. Though I would order a few of those bushings that the valve cover bolts go through. The rubber on a few of mine had deterioriated and probably don't hold the cover on as tight. It took longer than 1.4hr for me, but it was also my first time and I was extra careful.

KuoH

I just got my package from subaruparts.com today with valve cover gaskets, all the grommets, and a couple more gaskets that are smaller under the valve covers. Any advice/ pitfalls on installing these?

Hey Mike,

Where's that shop you're talkin about?

Make sure the engine is stone cold and drive it up on a ramp or jack it up. You might also want to get one of those 10mm (or is it 12mm?) flat ratcheting wrenches. The bolts at the bottom rear are hard to get to because of the narrow space and although you can get a socket wrench in there, once you start to loosen the bolt, you won't be able to get the socket to release to back out the bolt the rest of the way. Very long handled open ended wrenches also come in handy for this.

If you move the cover slightly aft, you should be able to clear the cam gears in the front with minimal wiggling and contact. No prying of the engine block was necessary for me to remove or reinstall the driver side cover. Once you have the cover off, clean it thoroughly, but carefuly, especially in the grooves where the new seals go. Be careful of the oil filler neck and anything else that might be breakable when handling the cover. I didn't do the passenger side seals as there was no leak at the time. Oh, and the spark plug wire clips will most likely be broken, so If you want to retain the neat and organized look of the wires, you should order replacements before removing the cover, as you'll have to dig out the stubs of the old clips from the cover.

KuoH

Does it make sense to go for new spark plugs when doing this job? Is there any advantage while the covers are off?

I replaced the valve cover gaskets on both sides today. It was fairly easy, but the driver side took alot of patience to wiggle the cover out of there once the bolts were all removed. It was also kind of hard to get the cover back on without knocking the new gasket out of there. The passenger side was easy. I removed the battery and the air filter cover to gain access as well as a small plastic cover by the tie rods on each side to get to the bottom rear bolt holding the cover on.
You will need 20 of the washers - for some reason subaruparts only billed for and sent 16 when I clicked the order for both sides.

I didn't do spark plugs but they would be alot easier to do with the covers off due to the added clearance. Now I am thinking I should have at least pulled them and took a look at them while I had everything apart.

When I did my driver side seals, I took out the plugs first and didn't have much trouble getting the cover out or back on with the seals. Perhaps not having the plugs in the way helped?

KuoH