For the last day and a half when I come to a stop I could have a smell like I'm burning oil. The smell was very light and I always attributed it to the cars around me. Sadly I found that it is my car that is leaking oil. I've been monitoring a small oil leak, and the front of the engine block between the block and cylinder head and that's where I thought I might have some oil hitting the header.

If only it was that easy. It seems my leak is coming from somewhere in my differential. The mufflers and the Y-pipe that splits the one large pipe to the two mufflers is covered with a light filb of oil. I can only hope that this leakage is from a simple seal. The car is too low for me to get underneath it to look closely for the leak, especially at 11:30 at night.

The question is this, should I make the 20 mi. drive to work with this small leak or tow the car in. While there is definitely a pretty large quantity of oil splashed around the undercarriage of the car, the amount that has actually dripped onto the floor of my garage floor rides is very small. Since the car has cooled down it is also stopped leaking.

Part of me says tow it in, and minimize the damage. The other part says, "you better blow it up good, or else they'll just fix the leak, top it off, and send me on my way." I'm worried I may have already done enought damage that the whole thing SHOULD be replaced, but I doubt they'll do that if it still works.

I guess this means no track day this Sunday!

 

Call the dealer and ask them. Then they carry the liability for telling you to drive it in.

 

Colin,

I think you should do track day on Sunday. This way you are guaranteed for a bigger pool of differential leak. For sure you'll be getting best service from Honda.

 

I spoke with the service mgr. at our rival delaership and may take it to him. Funny how that goes, we have a great service department ... for customers, but sometimes employees have a harder time getting the same service we give customers.

The service mgr at our rival is a friend of mine, and he also autocrosses so I guess he understands the autox is not likely to be the cause (he knows the stresses invloved). After speaking with several mechanics, I guess I'll carefully drive it in, but I will take the phone number of a tow company that has a flatbed.