When I park my 2001 a6 for the night I typically have 2 drops of oil on the ground underneath the car when I come out in the morning.

I have jacked up the car and pulled off the bottom cover and it looks splattered near where the transmission mounts to the engine. However, I don't think this is where it is coming from, I think it just gets blown around back there while driving down the road.

I have looked multiple times to try to see where it is leaking from and just recently when I looked it appeared near the left (if you are sitting in the car) valve cover. I shined a light up from below and noticed that there was some oil really high up in the engine bay. While I haven't been able to exactly pin point what part it is (the engine is so crammed) I think it might be the valve cover.

Has anyone else experienced a slow oil leak like this and if so, what was the root cause?

Thanks in advance for all of the responses,

Matt

 

Could be the valve cover, or cam seals, or cam tensioner seals... All from the back of the motor high near the valve cover... These are common issues in our cars.

 

Thank you for the response hxgaser. I believe that the leak is coming from the valve cover but am hoping to confirm this shortly.

I have a coolant leak as well and will be taking off the intake manifold to get at the auxiliary pump, but while I have the engine dissected I intend to snoop around and correct the oil leak too.

The car has 38,000 miles on it and I intend to replace the spark plugs also. Is there anything else you would replace or check while I have things apart?

Thanks again

 

For 38,000 miles I would suspect it is only valve covers too. Eventually your cam seals will need attention, but I would just wait for that unless you can confirm the leak is from the seals. There is nothing that I can think of... Just check all the coolant hoses for leak. Also since you are in there, check the hoses going into the heater core at the rear of the engine. Mine burst around 90,000 miles and getting to it was a biatch. Since you can easily get there I would check those too. Also clean the throttle body as well while at it.