I've got a 2003 Enthusiast and I bought it back in July. It has just a tad over 80,000 on it. I don't know what the previous owner ran in it, but when I got it the oil had last been changed at just an average used car dealership. I'm guessing nothing "fancy" was put in. When it was due I put Mobil1 0w04 in it. Everything was fine. I did a change at the beginning of November and parked it for a week cause the weather was terrible. Had a nice Sunday so I pulled it out, noticed a small spot and figured it was just cause a a tad bit dripped down while I was filling it. Drove for an hour or so and then put it away for the winter. A week later I checked under it and there was a huge spot this time.
It's a nice 25 degree day today so I decided to jack it up and see if something didn't get tightened. Everything seems to be tight. It's probably not the easiest to tell, and I know no one can tell for sure, but from the pictures, does it look like seal is leaking? I wiped it off and will check again in a week, but it just seemed to have oil on the side of the drain plug.
Also, I know these cars have the RTV seal, but I was just going to order a gasket from Advance. Does it really make any difference if you go with RTV or gasket?





Thanks for any help.

 

Looks like it's also coming from the filter sandwich plate or somewhere else higher than the pan gasket. A little bit on the upper pan seal too.. My 130kmi Z leaks from about everywhere possible. Just got used to it and wash it off every oil change so I can see where it's coming from. If anything, have the filter and/or sandwich plate checked out, high pressure oil in there that could cause some serious oil loss down the road.

 

So I basically should back off using the 0w40?

 

I run 10w30 mobile 1 in my DE at 92k and it burns a little oil not much but definitely no leaks in my driveway.

 

Same here , living I. Nyc climate changes every couple of months . No leaks , oil pressure is spot on and car still pulls like a train with a tiny bit of oil burning in the process just hit 100k and am running mobile1 10w30 as well all year around .

 

Does anyone know if there's just a seal on the filter sandwich plate and if it's easy to change, or is it a big ordeal and I probably messed a bunch of stuff up running that oil? I see a $4 O ring for the sandwich plate on Advances site. Would that do the trick?

 

Id goto the dealer for the o-ring behind the oil cooler. Thats all you need. Plus its only like 6-7 bucks from the dealer.

 

Does anyone know if I replace all the seals, would it be fine to run the 0W40 then or will I keep blowing them?

 

Why are you running that and not what's called for the car ?

 

I read through the big oil thread on here and it seemed like the mobil1 0W40 was the best for our cars.

 

I don't know man , to each their own butt car has 100k using mobile 5 or 10-30 and I never had an issue knock on wood *.
People also said using Diesel engine oil is "great " for our engines , but in reality your going to take a chance cause someone was lucky ? Up to you I would stick what was meant for the car especially cause your pretty much stock no?

 

Yea, bone stock minus intake. I'll be switching to mobil1 10W30 I guess.

 

5W30 for normal use. 0W30 if it's really cold outside. Mobil1 is as good as anything else and they carry both viscosities. Be sure to replace the crush washer each time you do an oil change and use a good filter. I agree that the O-Ring could be the problem. If it were me, I'd clean the whole area with engine cleaner and then use UV dye and a light to find the source of the leak.

 

My g had this issue and it kept getting worse. Yes there is a ring behind the oil cooler. It's cheap. I looked for the part number but couldn't find it. It was easy to do to I had just changed my oil right before it went so I had to do another change less than 1k miles.

 

This is the old one, the new one is black

 

Sorry for the bad pic but this is from the fsm

 

That's perfect. Thanks a ton.

 

u bet