Odd oil leak...any ideas?

[pbrady5]

I've been noticing an odd oil leak on my 2001 vr6. It seems to be leaking from behind or around the thermostat housing or coilpack. I don't know why this would be. The car seems to drive fine, and I haven't really noticed any "smoke" or "fog" coming out of my exhaust pipes...

Does anyone have any ideas on why this might be happening? Its really been bothering me since I just spent a ton of time getting this car put back together.


Thanks guys!

[JeremiahSOW]

Valve cover gasket.

[pbrady5]

I'm sorry for any ignorance, but is this a bad issue, or a semi easy fix?

[grantndub]

Is it a vr6? Just to be clear. I recently had a leak from about the same place, it turned out to be the upper chain had eaten through the upper cover. How many miles? and when was the chain guides replaced?

[pbrady5]

It is indeed a vr6 with right around 155k. Its high, I know, and I bought it very cheap back last december. I honestly couldn't tell you when the chain guides were replaced, but I can tell you that I drove it today and saw the oil leaking. Along with the oil leak was a little smoke (not much at all, but enough to see in daylight) coming from the left side of the engine around where the wiper fluid reservoir is. I know there is a belt over there (please forgive me, I forget what its called) and it looked like it was coming from around that area. The oil is leaking from around the thermostat housing though and pools up around where the positive battery terminal is. I haven't driven the car for more than about 5 or 10 minutes total since I noticed the issue start, but I haven't noticed any weird problems with the way it drives other than every now in then I'll seem to lose power in 4th or 5th gear for a moment or two and then all of the sudden its fine. Not like a misfire, but just like immediate deceleration.

[grantndub]

155K isn't really that high my car has 148K if you think about it it's about 12K or 13K a year. As far as the leak around the the washer fluid bottle, I can't really think of any oil the won't leak there. Possibly power steering leak, there really isn't any oil lines there.

For the leak around the thermostat housing. I had a strange leak from the as I said previously the chain was eating through the cover.

Which meant the chains had to be done and the cover replaced. Which is a ton of work. The only way for you to really know where the leak is coming from is to get in there. It could be your valve cover gasket leaking on both sides but again on a VR6 it isn't really easy to get to and the upper intake manifold need to be removed. Here a video of the upper intake removal it's a mk3 but it's very similar.

As I said previously the only way to really know is to start looking, remember gravity. The leak will always drip down. It kinda sounds like you got a few different problems. GL.

[pbrady5]

Thanks for all of the info! I think I misspoke though, I don't have oil leaking on the left side of the engine by the wiper fluid tank, I just noticed a small amount of smoke coming from there along with the oil leaking from the right side around the coilpack. I'm going to dive into this today to see what I can figure out!

[grantndub]

No problem, GL on finding it.