Still havent had a chance to take the front intercooler off yet to inspect the coil packs. Got the CEL again two days ago. Pulled out of my parking spot today and see a 3ft by 3.5ft patch of oil underneath my car. I pretty much got that jumping heart feeling when I saw it.

Drove the car about 70 miles last night , so I am hoping I didnt mess anything up. Last night I ran my car for a few minutes in that spot while I was unpacking it. I can only think this is when the oil dumping happened. This morning, I topped the car off and drove to work, no problems, noises, smells, etc. ( I didnt WANT to drive it, but its a 5 mile drive to work and I had no choice in transportation )

I cant imagine that a Valve Cover Gasket leak could be THAT bad and the car would still run like it did last night. Maybe I hit something on the highway and nicked the oil pan. Can anyone else think of anything else I should look for, I am going to get under the car this weekend and inspect the filter, and drain plug area, other than that I dont know where to look. If it helps it look like a large portion of the oil came more from the passenger side of the car. Thanks in advance!

 

WOW. first off, are you SURE it is engine oil? on the ground, coolant, oil, and trans fluid can look similar. that big a puddle cannot be the valve cover leak, unless it is off. for that much, it is being PUMPED out, as the motor is running. with that big of a leak, you would be out of oil real quick. how much did you add?
if for sure it is oil, i would check the "sandwich" oil cooler/heater. this goes between the oil filter and the oil filter head, and has coolant running thru it. there is an o ring seal, and over time and many heat cycles, the seal becomes hard and shrinks. the cooler/heater comes loose, and it can make the oil filter back off. this is a huge problem on the mitsubishi's, dunno about the mazda, but it is the exact same design. if it is the cooler, there is a large threaded fitting that runs thru it, and you CANNOT overtorque that rascal, or you will crush the cooler, then oil and coolant will mix inside the motor, and fubar it.

 

I am fairly sure it was engine oil. I dabbed my finger in it and it was dark, brown, and smelled alot like engine oil that you would smell on the end of the dipstick. Not to mention I added about 1.5 quarts to get it almost to full. I didnt want to add anymore for risk of overfilling it. I agree the spot was VERY large and I am thinking something like I hit something on the road that scraped the oil pan and or filter. I will do my best to check in that area you described keninn. I am no mechanic, but am learning more and more as I have more and more problems with the Millenia.

I'm pretty ready to give up on the car at this point. I like it, but I dont like all of the "uniqueness" about it. Plus Im jonzing for a manual sedan again after I picked myself up a '92 MX3 last weekend. Im putting the car up on a lift this Sunday and will post what I find. Im apprehensive at this point.

EDIT: I also forgot to mention, the same night that I drove the car like 70 miles, the "TCS ON" and "TCS/OFF" lights came on while I was on the toll road. Normally I would have pulled over and stopped the car, but there were no exits. I dont know if that helps "describe the problem". Im still boggled why it dumped that much oil.

I drove the car again today abotu 20 miles to and from lunch and no problems. If I had a cracked block or blown head gasket I would imagine I would know pretty quickly even with a short trip like that and that it would be spewing oil every where each time I drove.

 

Well I dug into the car today. Took off the front intercooler and changed the oil. There was a decent amount of oil in Cylinder #2 where I was getting the misfire. I cleaned off the coil pack and got a qtip in there and cleaned out the small pool of oil that was at the bottom of the cylinder where the top of the spark plug was. It actually took about 4 qtips to get it all out and even then I could see a fine film left. Per babyhuey's idea I swapped the coil pack on 2 with the coil pack on 6 to see if the misfire follows.

Much to my dismay though I found a significant amout of oil in the front intercooler as well as in the pipe that goes from the intercooler to the intake. From all of my research this means that my superchargers seals are going bad? Just figured I would update the thread. Thanks again guys for all the help!

 

personally, i think that oil in the intercooler stuff is normal. you will notice that the ones that post that the seals in the compressor are bad know very little about cars. you will get oil mist from a lot of places, especially the pcv valve. since it routes the excess "air" back thru the intake(sealed system), the oil mist then cools, and forms a film, then small puddles in the intake path. this is normal. on the mitsu, oil in the intake was not taken as a bad turbo, but a normal operating phenomena, and we would take the intake tract apart and clean it from time to time. cars with egr seems to be somewhat worse. bmw's have some fairly sophisticated systems to try to "catch" the condensed oil mist, and route the oil back to the sump. they dont work, but they are there. some of the bmw's have to have the intake plenum and all associated parts removed and cleaned, it is so bad. we have seen cars come in on a hook with oil coming out the tailpipe. also, oil in the plug wells throwing a misfire code is common on bmw's with cop system. modern day engines are a sealed system, if it dont go out the exhaust, it gets routed back thru the intake for another try. btw, when was the last time the plugs were changed?

 

I changed out the plugs about 3 months ago. I had to have the knock sensor replaced, and not too soon after that was when I started to get the misfire on Cylinder #2. I'll be driving her back and forth to work the next few days, still nervous about taking her on a long trip home to Cincinnati for Xmas. Dont really want her to dump all the engine oil on the interstate.

I looked around the best I could today. Friend of mine has a pit in his garage so I was able to get under the car and really ahve a good look. There was engine oil EVERYWHERE on the underside of the car. It was all over the oil pan, what looked like part of the AC Compressor, and most of the chassis back from the oil pan. As well as the driver side inner CV boot. I was hoping the leak would be obvious but I was clueless. I cleaned up everything the best I could with some engine cleaner spray he had and wiped everything else down with a rag.

Gonna give it a week and put it back in his garage and see if we can find where the leak or as I like to call it "dumping" occured. If I had a guess of where it started it was somewhere in the upper passenger side of the engine. Sadly I dont know what to look for in that area. The was definately no leakage from the oil filter or from the oil drain plug. It "kinda" looked like there was oil seepage around the edge of the oil pan where it meets the engine but that doesnt explain how oil got on the ac compressor.

 

Hadrien, I was thinking maybe from the oil sender unit but that would have been right above the oil filter I think so you would have seen it when changing the filter. Are any drips noticed with engine just sitting and idling that could be followed? Was oil all over the A/C compressor or just on bottom?

 

I drove about 20 miles tonight so the car was nice and warm. Once I got it home I parked it and let it idle. I dug a piece of cardboard out of the garbage and set it under the car about 5 inches in from the center of the passenger side front wheel. I sat there on my stomach and waited, and I didnt have to wait long. There was a drip about every 3-5 seconds from that area.

It could be that part you are describing since I know the filter is more to the passenger side of the car. I dont know what that part looks like or where to look for it near the oil filter however. Any hints on what it might look like in general? IF the oil were dripping straight down (which I know is near impossible) if you look down from the top of the engine right around where the oil dip stick is, in that general area is where the oil drippings are collecting underneath the car. I know this seems vague. The oil seemed to be only on the bottom of the AC Compressor. Like I said I can only assume it was the AC Compressor since it looked like a high pressure hose was comign out of it. If you were under the car and facing forward like you were driving the "AC Compressor" I am describing would be about 3 o'clock to the oil filter and ahead of it.

If I get to get it over my friends pit again, would removing the plastic guards by the oil filter and oil pan help you think? After seeing the leak again tonight I know now I am NOT taking it on a 700 mile round trip to Cincinnati for Xmas. The new MX3 will have to make that trip.

 

Hadrien, it definitely sounds like the oil pressure sender is leaking. It is located just above where your oil filter is and just to the drivers side of the A/C compressor. Took me a minute to get the 3 o'clock ahead of the filter thing.. Am posting quick cause I see you are online so may get this right away. Will get a diagram of the sender location that may help. Hold on.
Am having the devil of a time posting tonight as it keeps kicking me out and saying feature disabled and have to log out and back in.
Must be my connection or computer as I cannot get to Mazda manuals online to post you a pic of the location. It should be just above the oil filter. Is a single wire connector that is right above where the oil filter is located. Will see if I can post you again in the morning a pic that will explain better. it is the only thing around that area that should leak in the volume that you describe.

 

Sorry for the weird description babyhuey. It was the best way I could describe it though hehe. :P The car dumped another decent amount of oil last night. I had to do some holiday driving around town and this morning the piece of cardboard I left under the car to watch the drips last night was totally soaked in oil. It definately seems to drip more when the car has been nice and warmed up than it does if I just take it to and from work (6 mile trip 1 way)

I cant thank you enough for any info you can post on the oil pressure sending unit. I guess the biggest question is, is it a repair that needs to be done by an experienced mechanic, or possibly something I could attempt. Thanks in advance!



EDIT: Did some searching. Is this the part your are referring to babyhuey?


http://www.partsamerica.com/ProductD...pe=417&ptset=A

I will try to get the car up before the holiday to check if that is indeed the part. I also assume I have to drain the oil again to swap out the part :P