Oil Puddle Under Your Car or Truck How to Track Down Oil Leaks

Hey, friends, it's Len from 1A Auto. So, today in the studio, we have a car that's making a big mess on the ground. It's an oil leak and we want to take care of it. I'm going to go over some of the steps that I'm going to take to diagnose this issue. So, let's get started.

Now, to get started, of course, we're going to start off with some hand and eye protection. After that, let's make our way under the hood. While we're under here, we're going to pay attention to along the top area because, of course, well, gravity works. So, if you have an oil leak up along the top, it's going to make its way down. Up along the top of this particular engine, you can see that we have the valve cover. On top of the valve cover, we also have the oil cap. So, of course, you're going to want to go ahead and remove that and then take a little look. Make sure that it has the seal still on there, and also make sure it's in good condition. If you see a big puddle oil coming down along here, well, then that's probably an issue. Now, up along the valve cover where it meets the engine, there's supposed to be a gasket. That's called the valve cover gasket. If that's leaking or even seeping, you're going to see it coming down like this. And, of course, it's going to potentially go down along the engine. On this particular application, as you can tell, the exhaust runs right across here. So, as this is leaking down, it's going to start burning off on that exhaust, and you're probably going to get a funky smell. Now, while we're still up along the top of the engine, I also want to mention that you're probably going to have a whole bunch of different miscellaneous sensors that lead into it. If any of those sensors are leaking where they connect onto the engine, you're, of course, going to have an oil leak. Now, we can see across the whole front of this engine, this valve cover gasket is definitely seeping a little bit, but this is just a seep. It's not necessarily a leak, something like this you're probably not going to see dripping on the ground. So, what I'm going to do is, of course, check along the backside as well. And I'm going to make my way underneath the car.

Okay. Oh, wow, what a mess. Now, this puddle is getting deeper by the seconds, so let's quickly take a look under here. All along this area right here on the passenger side, this is considered your oil pan. There's going to be a gasket in between the oil pan and the engine, and typically, that can tend to leak. This one actually looks like it's in very good condition and then also right along this area right here, you have your oil filter housing. This is going to be also common to leak, especially if this wasn't torqued to the proper specifications. If you under-torque it or even over-torque, it, you could potentially cause some damage which is going to cause a leak. This one looks like it's in good condition. Looking up along the front of the engine, at least as far as what I can see, I can tell that there isn't any oil that's coming down from the top down to this way.

So, now looking up along the backside of the engine, we're going to make sure that we don't see any oil coming from there either. Now, let's move along to the side. Now, inside the wheel well area of this, we're going to notice that there's generally a shield of some sort and that's, of course, important because it wants to protect the engine. Let's go ahead and get that right out of the way. Now, with that out of the way, we can see that we have a very clear mess around this entire area. Yes, there's oil coming from above this area. But, if you were to think about it as this crank pulley right here is spinning, this belt is also spinning as well. And as it's spinning, if it accumulated oil, it's gonna, of course, spray it in pretty much every direction. Now, obviously, there are a whole bunch of other areas along the side of the engine that you're going to want to pay attention to.

Some of these engines are going to have a timing chain tensioner on it. That's typically going to be up along the top on the passenger side. And then, of course, you'll also sometimes have some sensors that are down along the crank. That's a crank position sensor. These are, of course, going to have oil located behind them. And if leaking, well, then, of course, it's going to cause a mess. So, now the next thing that I would like to do is get back underneath the hood, I want to check the oil level, make sure we have some oil. Of course, we're going to top it off in case we don't, and then what we're going to do is go ahead and run the car. After it's running, let's go ahead and get back underneath here and take a peek of what's going on. Now, with the engine off we're, of course, going to check the oil level. So, let's go ahead and grab onto that oil dipstick, we'll pull it up and then just take a peek. After you take a quick peek, go ahead and wipe it off real quick and then double-check it. See, this one's great because we just added some oil to it to make sure that it is actually at least up to par. Before it was down here, it wasn't even on the dipstick to be honest with you. So, at this point, we're clear to go ahead and start this. So now, after we figure out which seal is leaking or what part it is we have to replace, of course, we're going to end up fixing that, cleaning down our mess, and then we're going to do a complete oil change on this.

And, of course, if you needed to know what type of oil to use, most modern-day vehicles are going to have the oil stamped right on the cap. So, now that we have the engine running, we're going to carefully pay attention to this area up along here. Along the backside of the crank, there's of course going to be a seal. And that seal is going to be very important. The crank, of course, every time that the engine is running or making a revolution is going to be spinning. So, of course, that still needs to be in good condition. This one right here, I can see a nice clear stream of brand new oil coming right down the engine. The reason why it's clear and brand new oil is because, well, there wasn't much oil inside this engine so I had to add a whole bunch. This looks very bad.

Okay, friends, so we found our oil leak. It's a massive oil leak. This is very bad. Obviously, this is something that we're going to want to clean and then fix. But, if you were to look at it, the mess didn't only come underneath the engine. This one made its way all the way back to the backside of this car. So, if you asked me, it's going to be super important to ensure that we fully clean this entire undercarriage of the car. Why is that? Well, of course, because I care about the environment and I don't want to contaminate nature. So, we found our oil leak. Your oil leak might be a little bit different on your particular application, but for us, it's coming from right here. Something important to remember is that typically, gravity is going to work overall, right? So, if you have an oil leak up high, gravity is going to go ahead and draw it down. That's what's bound to happen. On our particular application, our leak is coming from an area that spins. Essentially every time I'm running this engine, this crack is going to be spinning with the speed of the engine. So, if there's oil coming down onto it, it's going to go ahead and spin and then get slung all over the place. That's why our mess goes poof like that.

Hopefully, you learned a little something in this video. Maybe you did and maybe you want to talk about it, or maybe you even just have a story of your own. Either way, leave it in the comments section below because I always love to hear from you. Of course, if you liked the video, smash on the like button for me, it would mean the world. While you're at it, go ahead and subscribe and ring the bell. That way there you can't be kept up with all of our latest content thanks.