Driving home from school for winter break, I made it about 25 miles out and noticed a fair amount of smoke coming from the engine, dripping down the undercarriage and smoking down the exhaust (not out of the exhaust). I drove back to school. The car was running fine and gave no hint that something was wrong (except for the large amount of smoke), and when I checked the oil at my turn around point, the level was fine/slightly lower from where it was when I left.

I had the car towed home so I can work on it with help from my family. I removed the ignition coils and found oil in some of the cylinder wells, covering the spark plugs in some cases. When I removed the valve cover, the valve cover seal and the spark plug seals where hard, i just replaced them 15,000 miles ago. While I have yet to identify the main leak of oil it appears to be coming from the rear bottom area of the engine.

Any ideas of what could be wrong? There is no oil in my coolant.

 

Either the oil is running down the back side of the engine or your rear main oil seal has taken a dump! These engines do not get a lot of reports of seal failure, and I think I remember some poster reorting somewhere it could leak besides the back of the valve cover. Have a good look back there with a mirror after you have wiped it all down, then run it. Good luck and keep us posted!

 

Might still be the valve covers and seals given all the trouble you were going through with them a while ago. If the original job was not done properly you could still have a leak.

Until the motor is cleaned off, it is very difficult to decide where the oil is coming from because it goes everywhere.

 

After a through cleaning of the engine and a brief running of the engine, the cause of my oil leak appears to be a faulty oil pressure sensor. I should have a new one in by sundown Christmas Eve. I could not be more relieved.

 

early Christmas present to self?

 

Mine didn't leak, but failed in its sending function. Had to make a wrench to change it. Vise, propane torch, large hammer and 18mm open-end wrench....

 

This is very common on the AJ16 along with the oil cooler bypass o-rings. If the o-rings aren't leaking yet they will. If I were you I would do both the switch and the o-rings