Evening all,

Just purchased a 2003 '03' Skoda Octavia VRS, love the car, and it's really quick, chuffed with it. Anyway, every now and then I've been getting a whiff of hot oil, so thought I'd inspect a minute ago. Upon inspection it seems I've got an oil leak, took the engine cover off for a better look, can see oil on the side of the engine, sort of next to the air box, and underneath the front of the manifold running all the way around the right hand side of it.

Any ideas what this could be? I'd rather get it sorted sooner rather than later for obvious reasons.

Cheers .

these are terrors for the breathing/pipe system leaking and dripping all down that area, so some pipe replacement may be necessary, under pressure this could be getting blown onto engine and mani and burning off

Edited 23 December, 201213 yr by Lofty79

unless you can throw up a few pictures of the area to give us a better idea of the exact area, your best bet is to clean it up as much as possible and then start the engine and listen/look out for the reappearance of oil.

Is it a scummy sort of dirty oil or fresh looking? If scummy it is likely to be from some of the breather pipes.

I'll get some pictures tomorrow . It looks old rubbish really.

Edited 23 December, 201213 yr by DKB69

Common issues on these cars is a cracked "Y" breather pipe that fits to the gearbox side of the cam cover. It is rubber and gets brittle with engine heat over the years. Replace with a silicon one. Also cam cover gasket is common to leak for same reason and will not take much to leak a messy patch once it goes.

A few pics will prove this though buddy

Thanks guys, much appreciate the quick help, will be getting some pictures.

the breather pipes will cause a build up of sludgy oil and if it sits on the block it will catch dust and make a mess.

Most likely suspect is the y pipe that comes from the rocker breather and the crankcase below the front engine cover. take a good look at and around it tomorrow.. gently! the hard plastic pipe that comes up from crankcase is very brittle.

if you do go searching through pipes also watch the orange dipstick guide tube as it is very brittle too. (needless to say I've broken both of them....)

***Oops Bowders beat me to it! stupid dodgy internet connection!

Edited 23 December, 201213 yr by michael1

Little pipe below where the red arrow is pointing looks oil covered, well it is oil covered:

Where the three arrows are pointing is roughly where the oil trail goes:

And this is roughly below the MAF:

No loss of power or anything like that so hopefully a pipe, would have a better look during the day, but I only noticed it tonight after a bit of an investigate.

Edited 24 December, 201213 yr by DKB69

You need to take plastic engine cover off and get a better look buddy. I would also clean the area up and run it again to get a better feel for the leak as the previous muck could be down to issues that have since been fixed

Yeah, I shall get in there and have a good look around.