It's funny that I resurrect this thread, only to post some bad news right behind my earlier (positive) post.

Last night, (during a snowstorm no less), the wife's Dragon started burning oil.
Well, to be exact, I checked the oil 300 miles ago (at fillup) and it was AOK, but last night, there was NOTHING on the dipstick. 1.5 quarts later and it was alright. That's some pretty heavy usage, even for a VX I figure.

Well, here's what happened, and I suspect that I might not be the only one out there.
While adding the first quart of oil, I noticed a slight amount of smoke/steam rising from the vicinity of the EGR valve -hmm, says I. I have the wife pour in the other .5 quart while I jam my head/hand/flashlight into the little nook at the left rear of the engine bay.
We use a very light (0W) synthetic oil, so it's difficult to see -but there is a leak. It's a small cut/tear in the valve cover gasket, at the rear corner of the cover. When the engine is started, and placed under load, the oil pressure forces a small but steady stream of oil out of this breach and right onto the exhaust manifold/EGR pipe/valve where it is immediately vaporized. Very little smell, and almost no smoke. This leak went from nothing to serious in just a few minutes I figure.

This is a 38k mile VX with an excellent service history. No work has been done to the heads/valve covers since it left Japan.