3.0 petrol oil leak

[strummer]

Hi all
    My X5 has an oil leak,both sides of the engine are dry,I can see oil in the pan under the engine and it is dripping from the plastic cover underneath,any ideas for likely suspects?
  thanks

[themoog]

Oil filter housing gasket probably. Difficult to see. Fairly easy to replace.

[strummer]

Is this where it attaches to the engine, gasket failure?

[strummer]

seems a bit of a mission to replace looking at how to's on youtube

[Slick]

Common on the 3.0 petrol engine is a blocked breather pipe, if you have no history of it being recently changed it would be advisable to change the pcv valve ( breather) and all its related hoses too. 
my first X5 was a 3.0 and the breather was blocked and the dip stick tube where the oil return connected to it was blocked too, causing the cam cover gasket to leak, worth checking the dipstick tube too

[strummer]

Where is the pcv valve,what's it like to replace?

[Slick]

Its under the front of the inlet manifold and its a tad fiddly to change ,  Oh  and its called a CCV valve on this video.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3ve7S8sZcI

[strummer]

cheers for the replies I may look at taking it to the local indy to get looked at

[strummer]

Ccv valve was blocked and oil filter housing leaking at join to head sorted by local indy