Hi everyone,

So I was driving yesterday and hit a bump at a weird angle and landed quite roughly. Drove back home, parked my car and the next morning noticed a lot of oil on my garage floor, seemed to be leaking from the oil pan area. Lifted my car on jacks and wiped down all the oil and added more oil to find the exact source of the leak. Within minutes I could see that it was the plug(sensor?) sort of thing that goes into the oil pan at the bottom that was leaking. I was wondering what that is and if there's an easy fix??


P.S. I have recently installed new valve cover gaskets so its definitely not them.

 

The sensor you're looking at is the oil level thermo sensor.

EuropaParts.com: Oil Level Sensor (Genuine) - 1J0907660B

I think these have an o-ring that seals them to the lower oil pan. You may want to remove the sensor to see if it's the sensor leaking or the lower pan cracked at the sensor boss.

 

I originally thought it was the o-ring so ordered the o-ring from ecs tuning. When i went to change it and took the oil sensor out, it looks like there's a crack in the oil tray right next to the sensor too. Any idea on how easy it is to replace the trays on this one. I looked around on the forum and read somewhere (alhough not for this exact car), that you have to jack the engine up to take out the oil tray. When i looked from the bottom though, I could see all the bolts along the edge of the tray. Are there some other hidden bolts that make taking out the tray difficult or is it easy to take out just for this model?

 

I suspected that the pan was damaged. I think you can remove the lower oil pan without jacking up the engine.

 

It looked like I shouldnt have to jack the engine up so I ordered a new one right away, sadly it wont get here until late next week so I am thinking of just sealing it with some JB weld until the new pan gets here since the crack is just a small hairline type crack. Once it gets here, I am gonna try and put it on and put some images on here as a DIY since I couldnt find one anywhere for a 2.8 (if i am able to do it lol).

 

I was thinking RTV might be a better temporary fix, but I don't think it's going to adhere with all that oil there. Same goes for JBweld.

 

I tagged my pan twice after lowering the car, until I learned to be careful, and not loan the A4 to my wife. It cracked, was weeping, not serious drips, but in any event I drained the oil, tilted the car so the oil would leave the cracked area. Next, I cleaned the crack and area around it thoroughly with brake system cleaner (an alcohol/solvent mix) then scuffed the crack area with coarse sandpaper. Lastly, I mixed up some JB or similar "High temp epoxy putty" from Home Depot, and used a credit card squeegee to force the adhesive up into the crack, and smeared it over the sanded area. That's been a couple of years now, and no leakage at all.

 

I should have known you'd find a way around the oil problem Turbo. Nice fix!

 

I did the same as turbo and the JB weld has held for the last two days. now only a couple more days to go until the new pan gets here

 

I replaced my oil pan on my 30v 2.8 after putting a crack in it. Used JB Weld like everyone else until I got the new pan. It is easy to replace. You don't need to jack up the motor. If I remember correctly, you need to remove the bolt holding the AC lines to the pan and remove the sway bar mounts and that's it. From there you just remove the pan bolts and it comes right out.