Warranty on my 03 SSEi is fixing to run out in over a week. I have went through that car right down to the CD changer and heated seats.. Some of my aggrivations were never fixed and I give up. Small town dealers I don't think have the expertise to fix stuff correctly. Only thing I worry about is the Intermediate shaft. Mine has been working good since the relube. If that new shaft is truly different, I WANT ONE!

Back to the problem. Took the car in for oil around the pan. They replaced the pan gasket.. You guessed it, still leaking. Very, very little though, just enough to keep the oil pan and tranny pan a little messy.

Look at this photo. Is this a common leak for a 3800 S2? If it'* common, I am not going to waste my time taking it to them, since they couldn't even catch it the first time. I can't tell if this is it leaking via the bolts and they just need sealant or what.

I bet 90% it is a bad main seal.

BTW, there is NO oil on the flywheel. Do you still think that is the rear main? (BTW, this think just turned over 30K miles..)

Same thing as mine, not quite as much .Been like that quite a while never notice oil level go down , very very slow.

My money is on the pan gasket. I've never owned a front-wheel drive Bonne that leaked at the main seal.

That'* what I am trying to figure out. The pan gasket was replaced... Or probably was just resealed with some sealant that you can see coming out by warranty work.

What'* weird is, the stream of yellow oil doesn't come from around the lip that I can see. Looks like the oil only around these bolt heads. If it'* just that, I'll pull the bolts out and put some sealant behind the head and stick them back in there. In fact, that is what GM did, there are bolts around the side with sealant behind the head.. Real lousy job. Anyhow, oil is so clear, you really can't follow it.

My main concern if this was a rear main, that'* serious.. But I seems like oil would have to accumulate around the flywheel since it'* so close.?? Any thoughts?

Pat

Compyelc4, you might not have owned one long enough, or with high enough miles, or you may just be lucky, but the rear main seal (rear crank seal) can and does go bad. It usually fails by the rubber in the lip seal cracking. That usually results in a really nasty leak that appears quickly that you cannot ignore even if you wanted to. Crankcase pressure problems can contribute to the early failure of crank seals, but failure is almost always a function of age. So, it is possible, but not very likely, Ivory03, that this is a rear main leak.

Since the pan was leaking, there is a possibility that the real seal carrier where it mates to the block forming the rear potion of the oil pan sealing surface is not sealed or set properly. When the oil pan is removed, you can see two joints where the carrier mates to the block. This is supposed to be sealed with RTV silicone when the carrier is installed, and can be damaged or pulled out when a new pan gasket is installed. Could be you just got sloppy work by the stealership.

Oil does and can spiral up bolt threads. I had this happen on some of my LIM bolts. The fix was a coating of Permatex 2B on the bolt threads.

Looking at the picture, it looks like the pan was installed using black RTV instead of a gasket. I would have used a gasket and a torque wrench.

Yeah, that'* my feeling also.. But the Service Invoice from GM says Gasket, but you know how that goes. I bet they reused the old gasket and used RTV (only 25K miles on the car).

Heck, I may just let the warranty run out Tuesday and just plan on dropping the pan and redoing it myself when it'* time for an oil change.

Now you know why I haven't just taken the car back to the "off the street" mechanics at the dealership.. Nothing I've had done between two separate dealerships ever got fixed correctly.

I may pull those two bolts first first and seal them up and see what happens. Thanks.. Patrick