After coming back from shopping with the family is morning I see a puddle under the front right side of the car. Earlier this morning I was taking the garbage to the garage and thought I smelled trans/gear oil but thought it was just the garbage I was holding.

Drove home from a friend's house last night, and hit a pot hole, nothing crazy, I shrugged it off.

After further inspection there is fluid all the way up the strut and is leaking onto the control arm.

Any ideas?

I didn't think there was that much fluid in a strut, maybe I'm wrong?

I'll be getting it up in the air and checking further right now.

 

I tossed a white receipt down to see what color the fluid is, here what I found.
And it still smells like MTL

 

Time to start a claim with the city.
I will be going out this afternoon to take pictures of the area and measure the depth of the pothole.

 

Wow - good luck with the claim. Think that if I tried that here the city would claim I damaged their pothole with my wheel...

 

Same thing happened to me. You'd be surprised how much oil is in the strut.

 

I just replaced passenger side same as yours.

I bought whole strut and spring as a set. Replacement wasn't difficult.
Good luck.

 

the oil in many shocks is often gear oil or something very much like gear oil.

 

Wow, must have been good size pot hole, do you have steel wheels and snow tires? Check you wheel and tire also.

Good luck and hope you get things fixed.

 

I got some pictures of the hole yesterday. It was nasty. My wife picked up a used strut from a wrecker for me today. Will be installing tonight.

 

aaaaaand I broke the head off the pinch bolt.

 

used strut ? That's like a used condom .

They both need to match or you could have handling problems.

 

Matching the strut part number to your broken strut is important, but I see stormier weather in your future trying to get that bolt out of the knuckle. If you're going to try to save the knuckle, pull it from the car and use a drill press with a good set of drill bits. If you booger up the threads, go with a longer bolt and put a nut on the other end of it.

 

That's exactly what I was going to do. I was going to try it on the car first, But I might just take it off and bring it work because we have a nice drill press.

I can't afford new struts right now. They gave me the wrong part at the wrecker anyway. Part number is 31316759420. That part is not available on RealOEM and from a few searches on google its a Euro part from the Cooper One and One D.

 

My car is 2004 and just replaced passenger side only.
Don't have any problem nor handling problem.

Of course it is better if I change both same time but come on.
Real world, it is 10 years old car and I don't want to treat it as BMW 5 series that I used to have.
It is a just old car and don't want to make it new to spend lots of money.

Just my 2 cents

 

Ooooh, a game....tell him what he's won Bob:

(opening door number one)

Its a NEW CAR strut!!!!

Thanks for playing 'Guess that leak!' Next week we'll be adding a new bonus round with a little game called why the heck is my car going into limp mode every time i want to punch the gas?

 

MINI part # 31316759420 Supersedes to 31316780466


http://www.ecstuning.com/Search/SiteSearch/31316780466/




Thanks

 

OK, so it is the right part number, just an old one. It actually came with a spring too but its not the right color markings on it. So I'll swap it with mine.

I'm going to try and drill out while its on the car. If that doesn't work by 9:00pm I'll pull it off and bring it to work to do it on the drill press.

Thanks for the help guys!

 

Ouch!! PIA!!

 

You are welcome, good luck on the fix.