wirunner

I've been having a burnt oil smell lately that is getting worse so I thought, what the hell, I'll take off the undercover and look for leaking fluids. Sure enough, there is burnt oil and leaking oil from this seal. What is it? What you are seeing is about 8" directly behind the second (aka upper) oil drain pin. Is this the engine connecting to the transmission? It's clearly engine oil. The oil drain would be right at the top of the picture (which is all dry over there).

cordsig79

did you get a recent change and not clean up the drainage?

I made that mistake the first time......then used cleaner to wipe it down 2nd time.

wirunner

I did change the oil about 3 months ago, but this is the back of the engine. Oil fill is right in the front on the engine but I used a funnel and didn't spill any. Both oil drains are perfectly clean around them as well. The under cover was also fairly clean - it's like a few drops of oil are oozing out of this seal then burn from the heat of the engine. See the crustiness around this seal too (dark spot) - just wondering what the engine is connecting to there.

Andy E.

Did you replace the copper or aluminum crush washer when you changed the oil?

Otherwise, one possibility may be a rear main seal (RMS) failure? Early 996's and Boxsters had this problem but on the Cayenne?

wirunner

Yeah I replaced all the washers on the last change. Like I said, the drain pins are perfectly clean and dry. I might be coming from above (and that's just the low point). Any residual oil would be cleared up by now months later, had I spilled any, which I was very careful not to. Some of the drops in the picture were actually sort-of fresh oil telling me it's leaking from somewhere. I did have the engine rebuilt (new block) under warranty 6 months ago so who knows. I remember smelling burning oil since I got it back. It's going in Monday...

Dennis C

My understanding is that the Cayenne actually uses the same RMS as the 996, so who knows... that could be it...

Andy E.

Small detail....