smoke from engine compartment - oil leak

How close are to getting your next timing belt changed? There are several seals known to leak in the front of the engine - but, to combine labor costs, best to try to wait til the TB is changed then just replace those seals along with, probably, the tensioner, water pump, etc. Of course, the smoke COULD be from CV joint grease sp;attered on the exhaust or something. Take the vehicle to a car wash and degrease/wash the engine - carefully. Then park the car over a large clean piec of cardboard and try to locate the source of the oil leak(s). Proceed from there.

Carl

Benjam> 95-Legacy L. AWD. 184,000 miles.

Hi,

Interesting that the REAR seal was replaced--these seldom leak compared to the incidence of front seals leaking. That's my experience across several makes: it's not a Subie specific problem. Seals tend to dry out and crack between 60k and 100k miles on many engines today. Blame the higher temps the engines are running at due to emissions requirements. Dry seals sometimes respond to "hi-mileage" oils and stop leak additives, but once they crack, it's pretty much all over.

Carl gave you a good list of things to do in a cost effective manner. On the CV joint boot, look at the inner right side first (the one that lives over the front cat) since it gets more heat than the others. For future reference, I'd suggest you have all the front seals done at each timing belt change, too.

Best of luck,

Rick

many thanks for the detailed tips. the car is otherwise in excellent shape. it delivers an average 33mpg, I can hardly believe it, although I drive mostly highway, 70 miles everyday.

Ben

I had an oil seal leak on my 99 OBW. At first glance it might have been easy to misdiagnose it as a rear seal leak, but it was actually the front seal. The oil was leaking into the timing belt housing and seeping out of there very slowly, leaving very little visual evidence of a leak. When driving on the highway, this dripping oil would blow rearward and was collecting on the exhaust pipe behind the engine's oil pan. When the hood was opened the smoke would always come up from around the transmission area, never from anywhere toward the front of the engine. It was also quite easy to see the oil that had collected on the exhaust in an area which was almost directly below the area where the rear seal is located. However, the rear seal was fine, the problem was the front seal. Since it only takes a drop or two of oil on the exhaust to create the smoke and smell, there was never any indication on the dip stick of loss of oil due to a leak. I would almost bet that you never had a problem with the rear seal.

KB

"Benjamin F. Zhou" wrote in message news:jqFFe.199$1E.118@trndny04...

I believe I may have a similar problem with my 99 OBS. I am losing a bit of oil and getting some pretty nasty smoke that looks like it's coming from under the engine.

I also got a CEL 420 which is something like, "catalytic converter below efficiency threshold." Could it be that the oil is dripping on the Cat & burning and the heat from that is making the Cat hotter than it should be or something?

I'm just short of 80k miles, so I'm about due for a timing belt anyway...

-Scott

"Ken Burns" wrote in news:O5_Fe.10310$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net:

The oil leak would have no effect on the catalytic. It could be the O2 sensor that is faulty, but not enough to give an O2 code, or it could be the catalytic which is bad, although 80k is very unusual for a cat to go bad. Ed B

That code is usually just a leaky exhaust gasket. TG

The P0420 code on a high-mileage car indicates that the catalytic converter is worn out. Fortunately you state that you are under 80K, so you should still be covered by the federal emissions warranty which is 8 years/80K miles. Take it to Subaru, they should replace the cat under this warranty.