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I posted this in the R55 forum but the R56 forum gets more traffic. Any insight would be helpful. One recommendation given is the pcv gasket in the valve cover.
Daughter has had the clubbie at school. When she got home yesterday I smelled something. Checked wheels and all were cool. This morning I see oil spots on the driveway. Pull it into the garage and open the hood to this.
the back side is dry as is the driver side. Is this the valve cover gasket? I don’t really see a point source of the leak but will need to dig deeper later today.
Dipstick was in place prior to taking pictures so I doubt that is the issue, although the O-rings on the dipstick don't seal well. I have a knockoff of the CravenSpeed for the dipstick. I had just removed it to check oil level and left it out to allow any residual oil to drain back down the tube.
See how much blowby you're getting by taking the oil fill cap off with the engine idling. If you've got lots of pressure pushing out oil vapor, it's likely it's just pushing oil out the fill cap (since it's wet all around that port).
The car is back in Morgantown and I didn't totally convince myself I found the leak. I cleaned the area around the PCV diaphragm and didn't notice any leakage in that area. I made sure the oil fill cap was tight. I reinstalled the OE dipstick as the aftermarket dipstick sealed poorly. Based on the spray pattern on the underside of the hood "I think" I've eliminated the leak but won't be sure for another few weeks.
Time for an update. My daughter had the car at school about 3 hours away. On the trip home mid-December it went into limp mode a little over two hours from home. She was able to get off the interstate at a close exit and my wife and I piled into the 4Runner and took off. I grabbed my Foxwell, some spare ignition coils and some tools. I thought it would be an ignition coil. I was wrong.
I got a bunch of codes once I hooked up the scanner, but none were ignition coil related. I cleared everything, fired it up and drove it the 2 hours, 15 minutes home. It didn't miss a beat. Before you ask I stupidly didn't take a picture of the codes. Still beating myself up for that. There was a high pressure fuel pump code as well as a couple of other codes indicating a brief drop in oil pressure. I put what I could remember of the codes, as well as the conditions when the car went into failsafe into ChatGPT and got several recommendations. The first thing it said to check was the intake/exhaust VVT solenoids. If those are leaking that can fool the engine computer into thinking low oil pressure and put the car in limp mode. The VVT solenoid on the front (can't recall if that's the intake or exhaust) is leaking badly so that's up for replacement. I think that's the only source of my oil leak so hopefully this will resolve it. I'll update once I install the new solenoid and drive it a bit to ensure the oil leak is resolved.
