Oil leak in wheel arch

Miles Watkins · Oct 22, 2006

Hi. I have an oil leak from one of the pipes in the off-side wheel arch. Is there anything I should know before I start pulling the thing to bits. No panic, haven't even got the wheel off yet - I am at the do-it-myself-or-send-it-to-Zentrum stage of thinking.

Miles

Melv · Oct 22, 2006

If it's the usual pipe that goes it goes right over the engine -£300 quid item over here -best of luck!!!

But oil can travel a long way -make sure the area is clean before you start investigating!

bernard tester · Oct 22, 2006

I have known the oil level senser to have a rust hole in! if its that just replace the sender and gasket.

chfs911 · Oct 22, 2006

My oil cooler sprung a leak and I replaced it and it solved the problem. £80 from breaker.

sbloxxy · Oct 22, 2006

Had this very problem with my 964 earlier this year and went through the same thought process- shall I do it myself or whipout the cheque book. The pipe that needed replacing was the one that goes from the oil filter housing round the arch to the botom of the oil tank, and after a bit of prodding around it just seemed to me to have the makings of a completly horrible job. I chickened out and gave it to my local garage. And I was right - it looked straight forward but everything was rusted solid and it turned out to be a right swine of a job. Result was: one very, very fed up mechanic, one big cheque (£400+) and a beautiful braided stainless steel replacement pipe.
Good luck!

Miles Watkins · Oct 22, 2006

I have just shone the lead lamp and the offending area and it looks like it is where one of the hoses connects to a rubber elbow. When the rest of the rain has drained off I'll get the rear wheel off and give it a proper inspection. It does sound like a 'proceed with caution' job.

MW

vitesse · Oct 23, 2006

If it is one of the hoses that connects to the thermstat housing ,proceed with care & caution-you don't want to strip the housing threads.

chrism964 · Oct 23, 2006

I had the same problem. I ended up getting a specialist to do it for me. Although it is a job that is fairly straight forward I could see it getting very messy (in terms of oil everywhere and potential for stripped threads).
Access is difficult to the oil filter end of the connection. I also looked at buying the correct tools for the job (crow foot wrench and some other bits) and it basically was coming close to the cost of labour. I therefore chickened out and gave the car to Zentrum and they sorted it. I'm sorry I can't give you an exact price as I'm at work and don't have the invoice but the pipe was around £200 plus vat and the labour was no more than a couple of hours or so. I guess that makes it about £350-400 all in.

HTH