My car 2009 base mini at 78,000 miles was misfiring and I was told to change out the ignition packs and spark plugs. That really did the trick, but when I replaced the spark plug I noticed a bit of oil on one of the spark plugs. I figured this was why the spark plugs/ignition coils failed in the first place so today I replaced the valve cover gasket. I think I did everything correctly. Immediately after though my car is seriously messed up and I threw a check engine light. I took it to Autozone and the codes are p115c, P0328, p2177. I cleaned out the mass airflow sensor but no luck.

Currently my car idles very rough and it will either stall out or I will push out down the accelerator to the floor boards and nothing will happen before it will suddenly take off. Feeling like **** because I was told not to try to do this by myself, but I felt I could manage....

Please help.

 

Did you ever figure this out? I’m having the same issue and it looks like I stripped one of the center bolts on the valve cover. I’m wondering if that’s causing an air leak.

 

Most likely. All bolts of the valve cover need to be working right -- ie not stripped -- in order to ensure a leak free valve cover.

If you want confirmation with the engine idling and warmed up spray some carb cleaner from an aerosol can around the valve cover where it fits to the head. If there is a leak the the engine will react as the spray contacts the leak area.

Regardless you are going to have to fix the stripped valve cover bolt hole. Been years since I messed with stripped bolt holes but when I did I used a Heli-coil to fix the threaded hole. There may other better solutions now you'll have to check with say a Mini parts department to see what it carries -- the techs probably encounter this once in a while -- or visit a good autoparts store to see that thread repair kits are available and to get some recommendation.

 

Yes. it was a rolled gasket. I just took my time and redid everything making sure the gasket was seated properly. even a very tiny airleak will cause major idle issues.