I was originally told by the local Nissan dealer that I had an oil leak on my oil pan and that the pan needed to be re-sealed. I than took my car to a local garage where the guys cleaned everything off and examined the car. When the car was on the lift the guy told me that the leak was coming from above my oil pan, and that there was a very small drip coming from out of the seal (I am guessing the engine). He advised that he had not seen anything like this before, and that the hole appears to be smaller than a pin hole. I am losing at least a quart every other week, and want to try to get this fixed. He mentioned that he knew of no way short of pulling everything out that this could be fixed. Has anyone seen a problem like above or heard of anything similar? I am willing to try to get more info or to answer questions, but the leak is really starting to bother me.
Like many of you on here, I do not trust the dealership because of past problems that they either caused or did't know about..(IE: We didn't replace your air filter..Opened up my hood and there was NO filter. Yep they didn't replace it, they just took my K&N filter out).

The car is a 96 GXE with 195K miles. Still runs good though

 

Can you take a pic of the leak? That makes it easier for people here to identify what part of the car you are talking about. Someone can then give you an idea of how much it would cost to repair a leak or fix the problem...and whether or not you should attempt to do the job yourself.

 

I'm sure it is the Oil Pressure Sender unit. Go to autozone and get an AFTERMARKET one for 5 bucks or less... you'll need a 1 1/16" deepwell socket... that's probably the most expensive part to get if you don't have it already (costed 7 bucks for me). You can do it yourself! It took me 20 min to do it.

check the 4th gen FAQ's... and look for the phrase "oil pressure sender" . good luck!

 

Does the local garage know that the maxima's oil pan is in two parts? The steel bottom pan and the aluminum oil pan (that looks like it's the bottom half of the engine)

The whole thing is a two hour job;


- Remove the two drivebelts
- Completely remove the A/C compressor from it's mount, and the mount from the engine
- Drop the Y-pipe and the subframe
- Remove the lower tranny bellhousing bolts
- unhook and remove both CPS's
- remove the lower steel oil pan
- Remove the upper pan bolts
- Drop the pan (you have to crack the permatex)
- Clean the mating surfaces
- Replace the front and rear half-moon crank seals
- Redo the permatex
- put it all back, reverse order of removal

 

take it to another mechanic, for a third opinion. if its the front seal he may be able to see the leak, but if its the rear seal, he could not see, only presume it was leaking from that one. since you are loosing oil its not the axle seals.

 

I am losing about 1L of oil per week if I boot the car at all... but there are no (visible) leaks of any kind. MAYBE there is a tiny pinhole leak in the seals... oil pan... nobody knows, not even Nissan. I asked for an explanation and the service manager straight up told me, "I don't know." Well it's their friggin' car... so I don't really know about the competence of Nissan mechanics anymore.

Take it to a 3rd mechanic and see what he says. Do you have any blue smoke coming out of your exhaust at all? The amount of oil you are saying that you are losing, seems to be quite a lot for such a tiny leak.

 

uhh duck tape fixes everything

 

I was told that there were some bolts right near the leak, and the mechanic told me that he tried to tighten the bolts but that they would not move. The only way he mentioned he was able to see the leak was to clean everything off, take a light and look near the back of the engine compartment. He mentioned soldering around the leak, but did not think that would work long term.

 

This is not the oil sending unit, as it wouldn't leak that much oil out AND it's coming from above the oil pan.


My guess is rear main seal.....PITA to do. This isn't the first VQ to suffer from it, although getting close to 200k isn't exactly an unacceptable interval to need changing.

Other possibility is timing chain cover, though that would tend to be more visible as a leak would be seen right behind the drive belts and going down to the oil pan.....

 

The timing chain cover sounds familiar....What needs to be done if that is the problem....

 

I would do a search for timing chain cover in this forum and see what comes up. It isn't a straightforward repair.


At the same time, the water pump should be replaced due to its relative ease of replacing when you are performing this repair.