Causes and Symptoms Of An Oil Pan Gasket Leak And How To Repair It
No one wants to wake up to a car that is always leaking oil to the ground. Even if it does not leak to the ground, but the traces of oil around the oil pan or any other engine part is always a sign that the gasket is worn out. This is no good news for anyone who owns a car. The best way would be taking your car to a professional mechanic for a proper check to ensure that it is fixed in time. Let see some things about oil pan gasket leak ?
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Contents
What is oil pan gasket?
Parts of the engine should be lubricated at all times to reduce friction. Because friction increases, it will lead to higher parts temperatures, that will cause damage to the components.
Oil pan acts as an oil tank of the engine car. There is a gasket at the oil pan that is attached to the car engine. This gasket prevents oil impossible to leak out when the oil is rotated inside the engine.
What is oil pan gasket leak?
The engine oil gasket leak is something that often to happen to different cars, and it is an easy fix. The oil pan gasket leak would happen when the gasket is worn out with time. You can expect that the car will keep on leaking oil unless you get to replace the gasket. Do not worry, as it will take a while before the gasket is completely worn out and you have to replace it.
Symptoms
Cases of smoke from the engine compartment
In some cases, you may see smoke coming out of the engine compartment. The main reason is that the oil from the pan is dripping on the exhaust, and the exhaust pipes are at high temperature. This situation needs to be fixed immediately, otherwise important sensors in the car will be soaked.
Issues with engine overheating
The engine needs the oil for lubrication and cooling. The engine oil is necessary for lubricating the engine parts so that the heat is kept at a minimum. Whenever the oil pan leaks, the oil level will drop beyond the acceptable levels. It is why sometimes with a low oil level, the engine will tend to overheat after running a short distance.
Oil drops or puddles under the car
This symptom you can see even before seeing the smoke from the engine compartment of the car. Over time, the gaskets will be damaged, and oil will also start leaking through the gasket, and fall out of the environment. When your car is in this state, the most noticeable sign is that you can easily find a puddle of oil on the ground after a few minutes of parking. At this point, you need to change the beauty immediately to avoid oil more leakage.
Experiencing low oil levels
Sometimes the leak might be small and hard to detect, so you have to check the engine oil level. You always expect to top up the oil after a while, but the oil seems to be low in a shorter time. This might indicate there is an oil leak somewhere. Check out the gasket just to make sure it is the culprit.
Causes
– The high temperatures of the engine deteriorate the gasket over time
– Continuous knocking of the oil pan by road debris loosens the contact with the gasket
By now, you should be in a position to identify the oil leak and end up fixing it before it can get worse. You are supposed to always get to maintain the car by fixing some problems before they can get worse. Make sure to take the car for inspection when you notice some of the symptoms for an oil pan gasket leak.
