New Years Eve I was pulling my 98 1.8 Quattro out of the driveway when the oil warning came on. I went to check the engine and found a large puddle of oil in the driveway. Thankfully it happened in the driveway not on the road. I live in Yellowstone and could have been dangerously stranded at -10f. After reading some threads and poking around it seems to be an O ring at the oil cooler. Advise was not to DIY. Not an option for me as I am to isolated to get a tow. I need some advise as to how to replace the seal myself and all the tools I will need. The big challenge is that I will be doing it in really cold weather with no garage to do it in. You get to work for 3 minutes, then warm up for 15.
Can I just replace the O ring or should I replace the cooler unit?
Thanks in advance for any help given. BTW: Yogi and BooBoo say HI.

 

Here ya go:

http://www.audiworld.com/tech/eng78.shtml

Going to deal with this tomorrow on my car too from the looks of it. Mine ran the pan dry last night, which I discovered when I started the car and the valvetrain was hammering like crazy. This article is for the retrofit of an aftermarket cooler, but it shows you the disassembly of the OEM cooler. Install would be the reverse.

 

The temp warmed up to below freezing from -0 so I was finally able to tackle this. The O ring was $4 and the fix was easy once the windshield washer reservoir was removed. You need to remove the hose clamp to remove the reservoir so have a new hose clamp handy for reassembly. You can do it from underneath without removing the reservoir if you have a pit or a rack. I don't get why a previous post said to not DIY. No need to disconnect hoses from oil cooler as shown in the link. Remove oil filter then the jam nut, slide cooler unit off, replace O ring and reassemble. The big job has been trying to remove the large frozen oil spill from my driveway with no hose available till spring. I was lucky that this happened while the car was warming up and not on the road.

 

My situation to a T. Car started and sounded fine. I went inside and from the kitchen overlooking the driveway, I heard the engine and it sounded awful. I could hear the valvetrain through a closed window. Went back out and shut it down. Big puddle on the driveway too. When I pulled the drain bolt from the pan I didn't get a drop out of it. Removing the filter got me about 4 shots' worth of oil and I could see it oozing from behind the cooler off one corner. I'm betting the o-ring same as you. Local dealer has it for $5.38 so I'm headed there in a few minutes to get it and go fix the car.

I'm not sure why they said not to DIY it either - it's hardly a big job. As for the hoses coming off, I'm pretty sure that's only if you're putting a new cooler on. No reason to remove them otherwise.

 

I stand corrected. We just finished installing the new o-ring on my oil cooler. Turns out the nut that holds the cooler on had loosened somehow, which unsealed the cooler from the o-ring and allowed the car to purge its oil. It's been changed now, and the two coolant lines to/from the cooler did have to come off (my car is a 30v V6). There was no way to move the cooler off the pipe with them connected.

Upside - car is fixed and has no leaks, and has completely fresh oil (I don't think anything was left in the car after it hemmorhaged all the oil out of the crankcase). Lost quite a bit of coolant during the changeout but that is refilled.

Downside - my car ran for probably 2-3 minutes solid with zero oil pressure. I had it running to warm up in the driveway and noticed it from the kitchen. Ran out and shut it down but it had been running for a few minutes I'd guess. Now I left one quart of oil in the Odyssey accidentally so I have only 5 quarts (half a quart low) until my wife gets home. Nonetheless I fired it up to make sure the valvetrain would quiet down and that the cooler 0-ring was a fix. No leaks and the heads got oil, but it appears my #2 cylinder has a lifter tick now. I'm hoping it's a factor of everything being extremely cold, and being a little low on oil, plus anything related to it running for a couple minutes dry. I'm going to add most likely a quart of Lucas to the crankcase and see if that pumps it up, then change everything after a week or so and put more fresh oil in. We'll see what happens.

 

Both lucky it happened in our driveways during warm-up. Should have mentioned that the cooler hoses were tied back and had to be released to slide off cooler, at least on my 1.8. Surprisingly mine has been running quieter than it was before this happened. Good luck on cleaning up the spill.

 

I added the last quart to the car last night and fired it back up. That lifter quieted way down and is only barely noticeable now. It wouldn't surprise me if the heat from running dry might've baked something in there. I'm going to seafoam it, change it in a few days, and add some Lucas conditioner, run that a week or two, and change it again. Hopefully that'll do it.

You aren't kidding about the puddle under the car. Upside is that there is no ice under there. G12 keeps it nice and liquid.

 

I have a stuck lifter. Its so annoying. :/