I wake up this morning and im suposed to be goin to practice (im in a band), so i move my car from the street to the driveway to start puttin all my drums in the car, i was about to leave so i turned on the car and started to warm it up because i dont like driving my car when the engine is cold. So my mom came home and i had to move my car from the driveway back out to the street when we saw a puddle of oil in the driveway, and this is the first time it has ever leaked oil, and now it is leaking profusely, drip.... drip.... drip, etc. I know nothing about engine work or anything of the sort, but it looks to me that the oil is dripping from the back middle of the engine. My moms bf thinks it could be one of the seals, i think its the oil pan itself b/c i bottomed out a while ago, and i thought i heard somethin loose and maybe it decided to drip today, i have no idea, so if you could help me out, i would appreciate it, thanks a lot.

oh and my friend who is a mechanic looked at it a little more closely and said the leak was dripping onto the exhaust.. any ideas of where the leak could be coming from to leak onto the exhaust?

thanks again

 

That's weird, I'm pretty suer that you can't hit the oil pan when bottoming out, tehre should be a bar that prevents this, at least my 98 Prelude does. My oil pan plug got stripped and started to leak and it splashed onto the transmission. As for your leak it doesn't seem like it's leaking from the oil pan, but I couldn't te you where it's coming from though. If it's constantly leaking then you should put it up on a jack stand fill it up with some oil and look to see where it's coming from.

 

On my 4th gen there is a seal on my oil drain plug... i remember when i changed my oil i forgot to put it in and i got the drip... good thing i noticed it the next morning. Mine didnt leak that bad tho just a little oil not much. All fixed now... hope this helps.

 

if it's dripping onto the exhaust the first place i would check is the oil filter. get the car on jackstands and look at the filter, if it's covered or dripping in oil, either the gasket went bad when you bottomed out, it's loose, or maybe the structural integrity is gone, but give that a look. if not, it could be coming from your cam seals or somewhere else on the head. check the top of the engine, esp in back and see where the oil is dripping from.

if it's dripping onto your exhaust piping and the honeycomb thingie, i'd say it's most probably your oil filter, and not the oil pan.

anyway if you get it on stands, and get a flashlight, you'll probably find it.

 

i heard it was the oil filter from another forum... i hope its only the filter and nothing leaking from the head, ill go ahead and check that out, and thanks for all the help, i appreciate it

 

If a Honda engine does develop an oil leak, it's usually the rear main seal.

 

update on my situation.... i was bored, sitting at the comp and decided to check and see if the car was still leaking, and it wasnt, so i turned it on, and it started leaking. I waited a little while and it stopped leaking. Apparently, it leaks when the car is on, therefore, oil must be going somewhere to get to the leak, but where? i have no idea. Does the oil flow through the filter often? im retarded and i dont know shit about engine work and im just worried that this is a costly fix or not, cuz im broke.

 

probably means it's higher up on the engine than the oil pan. the filter is constantly getting oil, more or less so it's still a possibility that that's the problem.

shouldn't be that expensive to fix, but i think it's fairly important to at least get an idea of what the problem is before you take it to a mechanic because the mech will bend you over and F you like his h.s. girlfriend.

 

well... my car is now fixed... and it was not a costly fix, $50 w/ parts and labor, and free oil change. But the leak was from a bad Oil Cooler O-Ring, and i want to thank everyone for trying to help me solve this problem, i appreciate it, later.

 

nice that's good to hear.

$50 is cheap!