Rant: $400 for a top end gasket set that turned out to be junk

I bought a full gasket kit for a 1993 Detroit Series 60 from a discount online place. Cost me about $400 when OEM would have been $800. Installed it last month and the valve cover gasket leaked oil within 50 miles. Pulled it apart and the rubber was cracked already. Now I'm wondering if anyone else has had good luck with cheap kits on older engines or if OEM is the only safe bet on pre-emissions stuff?

3 comments

3 Comments

hayden46627d ago

Bought a cheap set for a '92 Cummins a couple years back and yeah, same deal - the valve cover gasket started seeping within a month. I ended up mixing and matching, kept the main gaskets from the cheap kit but spent extra on a Fel-Pro valve cover gasket and a Victor Reinz head gasket from a local parts store. That combo's been dry for almost two years now, so it might be worth checking if you can replace just the leaky stuff with quality parts instead of the whole kit. @terrybennett mentioned NOS gaskets sitting around, and that's real - the rubber in budget kits seems to dry out faster than OEM ever did.

kevin_dixon1mo ago

Did you happen to check if that discount place is actually selling NOS gaskets that sat on a shelf for years before you bought them?

terrybennett1mo ago

@kevin_dixon yeah that's a good point, I mean they could've been sitting there since the 90s.