So my engine had an intermittent misfire detected when I bought it. I didn’t think much about it then because the plugs and coils had 125k miles on them. So I thought replacing them will take care of the misfire. When replacing the plugs, I noticed oil in cylinder 5 spark plug well and on the coil.

I then thought its the valve cover gasket thats leaking but none of the other cylinders on that bank had oil in their spark plug wells. In the meantime, I had contacted the dealership and told them about it and they quoted me $1300 for labor for valve cover gasket replacement for one side and the same amount for the other side. I thought that was weird because to replace one side they had to remove the supercharger and everything around it therefore it should not cost the same amount to replace the other side.

Over the weekend, I was making sure all the bolts on the valve cover are properly torqued and noticed a rubber seal (spark plug seal I am assuming) sticking outside in the leaking spark plug well on cylinder 5. See picture.

So I was thinking if it’s possible to loosen the valve cover bolts and try to push the seal inside and then re-torque the bolts. Is that ever possible or worth trying? How would this have happened in the first place? Any ideas?

Click image to enlarge