05 pathfinder valve cover leak

[grmeyers]

By now everyone should know that the 2005 Nissan Pathfinder is notorious for their valve cover gasket leaks, especially the passenger side. Normally it's best to replace the valve cover also due to warpage and twisting, my question is has a company come out with a new gasket to stop this nonsense, if so what company and gasket number please? Thanks for any help.

[VStar650CL]

It's all the VQ engines, not just the '05 Pathy. The reason they all eventually leak is the use of shoulder screws which don't allow torquing them down further when the gasket ages and shrinks or hardens. Those shoulders also prevent you from breaking the cover, which I'm sure would happen routinely with plain fasteners.

In any case, they aren't half as notorious as the tin covers on old small block Chevys. You had to hammer those flat every time you replaced a gasket, because guaranteed the screws had distorted the cover. Even hammered flat, they leaked endlessly.

Everything in engineering is a tradeoff.