I have a 2006 IS350, at about 100k, the Timing Cover Gasket started leaking. I had oil stain on my garage floor for the first 4-5 years, then it suddently stopped.

My car is at 190k now (over 10 years since the timing cover gasket leak started).

I park in the garage so I can see when there is a leak.
I haven't seen any oil drip on my garage floor for over 5 years now. Is it safe to say that the leak has fixed itself?

Ofcourse I haven't cleaned the engine bay of the oil leak so I can't tell if it has fixed itself.

Thanks

This photo was from a report in 2019.

 

Hello,

Huh, haven't heard of FIPG fixing itself over 5 years.. Could be that the oil leaking out created a barrier with dirt and grime that accumulated around it, creating a seal, but I wouldn't dare calling it a successful repair. With that, taking out the engine just to re-seal the timing cover ... so long as you can justify not going through the repair for yourself, you can live with it, even if it's far from ideal..

Hope this helps and best of luck!

 

Thanks for the response. like you said, oil/dirt/grime probably created a seal.
I'll probably just leave it alone, as repairing the leak is probably 2/3 the price of the car.

 

I recently watched this video , as my front timing cover seal has this same MINOR leaking issue. Was curious what the cause might be, and this video answers the question. Regardless, I don't see even a quart of oil loss on an 8k oil change interval; so I'm not even attempting to play with fire here and will just let it be.

 

Thanks for sharing your experience. Considering my IS350 is worht 6k max if it didn't have the oil leak (I got some major roof paint fade). It's definetly not worth fixing the leak.

Looks like I'll probably have to keep this car forever.