Hey All,

Bought my 96 T5 wagon last weekend (148k miles), and I have been going through all the usual maintenance items. This week I did an oil change, fuel filter change, and new tires. Timing belt kit arrived over the weekend, so I will tackle that this coming week. Ignition kit is on the way as well.

Here's my question; when I had the car up on the hoist for the oil and fuel filter change, I noticed a decent amount of oil on the backside of the engine on the driver's side. Its not catastrophic or anything, nodrips on the ground,just enough to make a mess of things. The turbo is clean, and it appears it is coming from higher up. From the top side, its hard to to tell how high up it is. My guess is that its either the valve cover gasket, or potentially the head gasket. I did a search on the forum and couldn't come up with anything that met this description. Does anyone have any experience with this type of leak?

While I am working on it this week, I'll try to pinpoint a bit better. Also, I'm only getting about 22mpg with extremely conservative driving (waiting to get the timing belt done until opening her up), so I think it may be time to also order the PCV kit.

Thanks in advance!

 

Clean the back of the motor good.

2 things I can think of.
1. The turbo return line o-ring at the block. There is a pipe going from the turbo to in the block. They leak but only under boost condition.

2. Vent system is plugged and pumping oil out of the oil cap and it is running back and down the head.
Oil cap seal might be bad as well.