96 GA GT Oil Leak

mickeyfan1975

I have what I believe to be an oil leak. I smell oil burning, and smoke comes of the passenger side fender well. I can't see any leaking, but I do have drops on my driveway. I just bought the car, so I don't know how much oil it goes through. I originally thought that it was burning off extra that I may have dripped when I changed the oil. It was idling high, but I cleaned the mass air sensor, but that has stopped.
Any thoughts?

burdawg

My thought would be oil leaking on the exhaust manifold from the valve cover, but without seeing it can't say anything definate.

shopperben

i had an obscure oil leak for years i would see a few drops of oil on the drive ways and would add a quart of oil maybe every few months.

during an oil change, the mechanic saw the leak coming from the oil sensor / plug. the sensor is in front of the engine block underneath the spark plugs.

however, i think the mechanic was shady and made the plug worst so that i would come back and have him change it. so i figured it was a good idea to shop around for a better price for the repair and i bought the part on chance that i could change it myself.

i continued to drive the car for a couple of months then the plug simply gave out and all the oil gushed out of the engine through that plug, because it was under pressure.

so i had it towed to another mechanic shop. the tow was free from AAA and it cost me about 80.00 bucks for labor to replace it. don't recall how much i paid for the part from the dealership.

but i think it was cheaper and quicker to have it done by a reliable mechanic instead of me buying the special tools that i would only use one time, getting greasy hands and fingernails and spending hours trying to figure out how to remove the faulty plug.

it is my belief that the part is of poor quality and should not have needed to be changed because of leaking oil.

at best, it would have been reasonable to change the part if it stopped providing the sensor readings to the computer.