squarehat

Well, pulling in to the garage tonight, I noticed a wet spot on the floor, about even with the front wheels, and closer to the passenger side of the car. I put my finger in the spot, and it appears to be oil. Pulled the dipstick, oil level checks out. However I did notice a faint burning smell when I started the car up today. My car is a '96 ES, with about 88K on the odometer. I remember reading about some seal going bad on a lot of the 1995 cars. Anybody have any experience with a leak from this spot? Is the oil pan off center towards the passenger side on these cars? I don't think it's leaked grease coming from a CV boot; it's about a foot or so in from the wheel. The burning smell this morning definitely was not tranny or power steering fluid; I noticed no smoke from either the hood or the tailpipe.

Thanks for your help, MCV platform experts


Edit: I ran a search (duh, should have done that first ) and found two possible causes: valve cover gaskets (cheap fix), engine seals (expensive fix). My sister just had the rear main seal on her BMW replaced and it ran her about $900.

j2tha0e

mine was the main rear seal, oil pan and transmission gasket.

flipside909

What color is the wet spot? If it's red, reddish-brown or related...it could be your power steering fluid leaking. As for oil burning smell, it could be residual oil that was spilled when the oil filter was spun off last from your oil change. Oil likes to sometimes pool under the filter, around the engine mount or etc.

squarehat

It's definitely engine oil. I cleaned up the original spot, then put down a couple sheets of 94-brightness printer paper, and parked the car overnight. The paper had about 1-2 oz. of clean oil on it this morning. I have an appointment to have the dealer check it out at 11AM tomorrow. The service rep told me on the phone that it may be as simple as re-tightening something (it had its 85K service done about 500 miles ago). I hope it's something as simple as that, and not a bad main seal or anything requiring large amounts of labor.

njes300

its prob the valve gaskets/seals. I had the same problem . Luckily it was covered under warranty . Try toyots dealer or independent mechanic for better pricing..... good luck

flipside909

Yeah usually retightening everything doesn't solve a leak problem. You will eventually have to change out the valve cover seals. I see alot of them start leaking as early as 60k on up on 1MZ-FE's.

njes300

on my es it started leaking @ 53k . Not much, but I took car of it asap .

lexusk8

When I had my '96 ES serviced at 90K, they also noticed some leakage with the rear main seal of the oil pan and fixed it up for several hundreds of $$$ . Hearing the echoes of this problem by other CL members here makes me think that there should have been a TSB on this issue if none has existed .

flipside909

the frequency of the problem is small...so putting out a TSB would probably be negligible. Plus since the car is of higher mileage, I doubt NHTSA or Toyota/Lexus would call out a TSB or recall for it.

lexusk8

Makes sense...

squarehat

Well, it turned out to be the power steering pump. Dealer charged me $598 for a remanufactured pump and labor, but I suppose its cheaper than a main seal replacement. Could've sworn the fluid dripping onto the paper was engine oil based on color and smell, perhaps it was just dirty power steering fluid.
This is the second Toyota product that's had a leaky power steering pump. It went out on my 94 Camry 4-cyl at 105K, shortly before I traded that car in. I've read a lot of posts on the SC300/400 board about bad p/s pumps, but not here on the ES forum.

Hab Nut

I am doing the valve covers on a friends 92 ES 300 tomorrow. Thanks for info on doing this job. If anyone needs advice after I do it, let me know and I will try to help. Rearward cover looks like a treat to do, and will probably be a plumbers nightmare, but hey, what the heck. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Hab Nut

Finished the valve covers gaskets on my friends ES300. Not too bad to do, other than you have to keep track of all the hoses and wires that have to be disconnected on the right (rear) bank. Removal of upper air plennum is a matter of disconnecting all hoses, wires, supports (2) and draining of the coolant (easiest to drain from right bank drain plug). Once the air plennum is out of the way, the real fun begins. There is a womping big old wiring harness running over the valve cover that has to be removed to gain access to the valve cover. You now (if you didn't earlier) have to disconnect the battery. Make sure that you have your stereo anti-theft code ( a three digit code) handy, as your stereo will not operate without it. (Check your owners manual for resetting the radio code) You now have to disconnect the wiring at the big plug at the firewall and at the alternator. There is a connector down the front of the engine for the crank position sensor too, that has to be disconnected. ARE YOU STILL WITH ME? Once the wiring is undone, lift the harness up and flop it over toward the transmission, to get it out of your way. Now all you have in your way is the power steering hose that runs very close to the valve cover and the EGR pipe that runs down to the exhaust manifold. Follow the route of the power steering hose to the front of the vehicle, and undo this hose, and move enough to gain access to the valve cover. I did not undo this pipe, as I was able to remove valve cover without doing that. A bit of a pain, but can be done. EGR pipe may also have to be loosened at manifold, to help in removal of cover, but again, I was lucky and was able to remove valve cover without loosening. Quite hard to get at manifold attachment of this pipe. Remove cover and remove old gasket. Replace with OEM gasket as they seem to make the best ones, and also fit better too. Install everything in reverse order, using new plennum gasket (OEM againg). Then you can attack the left (front) bank. This is so easy compared to the rear. No instructions required. A small dab of silicone in the corner areas where the gasket goes up and over the cam journal is a good idea. There are also a couple of areas where the camshaft is bored out of the head that have to be sealed with silicone. These are also where the gasket seats (at the end of each camshaft).

After everything is buttoned up check engine oil level and top up if required. Run engine, and check that all is well, no coolant leaks or missed hoses etc. Run the vehicle and get groceries or a Slurpee or whatever and let the engine cool down. I checked the snugness of all the valve cover bolts and got another half turn out of them. Very important to prevent further leaks. Rear ones are very difficult to get to and had to go from underneath and reach up to check rear bolts. A rubber arm and wrist really helps in this job.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

mmarshall

One thing that will help prolong the life of power steering pumps....and the whole system....is changing the fluid every few years, and, if necessary, flushing the system out. The fact that your PS fluid was so dirty that it looked and smelled like engine oil may indicated that it was overdue for a change.
This is an area where the Toyota / Lexus owner's manuals and service schedules could be a little better in....they don't really address the steering and brake fluid requirements very well.
Dirty PS fluid is by no means confined just to old cars either...my IS300 had sediment and dirt in the PS fluid at 15K and needed an early flush.