Possible oil leak

[Brooky90]

Hi everyone in the past 24 hour's people have been pointing out to me at work and the gym that when I leave a parking space there is a small patch of oil on the ground where my car has been. They all say however it might not be from my car but it all seems a bit coincidental how it's always in the space where my car has been. This evening I parked my car outside my place for an hour in our public car park, then reversed out and sure enough there was a fresh patch of oil on the ground. Had to get a torch to look as it was dark out. I can't look under the car myself as I don't have a jack but just wondered if anyone has an idea why this would be happening and how concerned I should be. My car is a BMW 328i e46.

[trickywoo]

Auto or manual.

If it’s an auto there is a good chance that is where the leak is coming from.

[Brooky90]

trickywoo said:

Auto or manual.

If it’s an auto there is a good chance that is where the leak is coming from.

Yeah it's an automatic

[njw1]

Is it definitely oil that your losing and not atf fluid or coolant? It is quite common on these engines for the cam cover to warp or even crack, that would be the first thing I'd check.

[d_a_n1979]

As above

If it’s losing oil that readily, it could be the CCV system or the rocker cover gasket & oil filter housing gasket leaking, either one or all three!

But, check the oil on the floor, if it’s darkish brown it’s engine oil, if it’s more clear it could be power steering fluid or auto box fluid etc

It deffo needs to be checked out though, so get your mechanic, or a local decent Indy to get it up on the ramps and check it out for you

If it is rocker gasket/oil filter housing gasket etc, it’s not expensive to fix and parts can be found on eBay cheap enough

Source parts using RealOEM to get the part numbers (follow the drop down boxes to get your correct car model) and search for those numbers on eBay. C3BMW or BMWmotormec are excellent resellers and Meyle/Febi Bilstein parts are more than fine