Hey Guys!

Moved to the city two years ago (Chicago) and finished up my bachlors degree at DePaul University. I did not have my car there and havent touched it in two years. Long story short, I came back last week to a few problems keping e from driving my prix.

1.) Oil leak in engine bay, causing smoke (moderate). I replaced the front VC Gasket because thats where the oil seemed to be coming from. That seems to have stopped, maybe a little residual oil left on the front manifold.

2.) and the real problem.... I think some brilliant mechanic at one of the oil change places cross threaded my oil plug and it is clearly leaking oil from the pan. am 90% sure its coming from the plug...but I guess it [/i]could[i] be from a gasket.

What ya'll think? And hello once again!

My bet the leak is from the pan gasket. Pretty common only fix is to drop the cradle to drop the pan to replace the gasket.

Herc, I hope your wrong ... but suspect you may be right. I got a quote form a shop saying it would be about 900-1000 to do that with all parts and labor.

Yeah, I wont pay that, but I hope it is just the plug. I am about to take it to a shop and see if they cant oveer drill and put in an oversized plug.

Let you know the story when I am back.

But good news, the smoke is totally stopped! Im just glad it was the front VC not the rear.

I highly doubt it's the plug.

If it's not leaking that much during oil changes, just run it and top the oil off when it needed. You can buy a whole lot of quarts of oil in what it'll cost to fix it unless you can do it yourself. We've had oil leaks from the pans on this one and the past gm car(aurora) and just adding oil seems to be the easiest fix. If it has been sitting that long too, I imagine the oil leak is going to look a lot worse than it really is.

Clean it up and check it in a few days.

For the oil pan? Way to high, but then again you did say Chicago. What is their hourly rate?
For a 2002 3.8 SC it is about a 4.6 hour job according to the AllData. And actually I'll be pulling my pan this weekend.