Hi all, I'm hoping someone has seen this before... I have a little collection of oil near the spot where the car's dipstick passes through a heat shield and into the oil pan. The spot is on the heat shield itself. I've cleaned it off and it returns after a while. Often, it's just a dark spot, hardly oily at all (I assume much of it blows or boils off; the heat shield gets pretty hot). There doesn't seem to be any oil on the external part of the dipstick itself (above the rubber plug), which kind of eliminated my first guess--that the oil was somehow blowing up out of the dipstick hole. There's no other apparent trail of oil either--it just appears there in the middle of the metal. The car is losing considerably more oil than it used to, but I'm not sure if this spot plays a big role in it... It also has a pan gasket leak. Any idea what gives? TIA, Andy
There is a rubber O-ring on the bottom of the dipstick tube where it slides into the engine. If the leak is at the bottom of the tube, it could be that. What is the condition of the valve cover gasket? It oil is leaking out from the cover, it could be tracking down the heat shield - probably on the backside where you don't see it. Suggest you start at the top of the engine and work your way down, clean things up and replace the gaskets wherever you find leaks and you should solve it.
