I have a 2014 Nissan Sentra with 130,000 highway miles. I noticed it started leaking oil at 90,000 below between where the transmission and engine meet. I replaced the pcv value several times. It did lessen the blow by and slowed the engine leak, but only for a short time. I always do my oil change with 5W-30 Castrol GTX except one time I let Monroe change it and they told me they used conventional oil - I changed it within less than 3k miles. I always used Fram Ultra Synthetic Filters. We bought it certified used from a dealer and I know a rental company owned it before us. I estimated that the car now leaks about 8 quarts of oil every 5,000 miles. We don't want to go through the hassel of selling it for $2-3,000, and we figured we can simply add oil since it's cheap. Should I still change the oil every 5k miles since the oil still looks clean due to me adding so much new oil. Someone recommended using Lucas. Is it worth keeping it since it's not giving us other issues?
If all it ever does is leak and you cant find the source might check for oil burning. Pull out a spark plug and look for any soot or oil on the tips, another trick it to check the tailpipe for soot that would indicate oil burning. Its definitely something you can keep driving and keep topping off if you dont mind spending the money for the oil. Definitely change the oil every 3 to 5k.
@ainavarro91
Appologies I was trying to edit my response, you indicated it was from the area between the engine and transmission that would be a rear main seal thats bad most likely. Your best bet is to see if you can find someone reasonable to replace it or add some at 205 reseal and then keep it topped off. It should fix the issue if you dont mind spending a little more on oil.
You can try some AT-205 to see if it will help but don't get your hopes up if its leaking that bad. Other than taking all that apart and replacing the seal which will be expensive there's not a lot you can do for it. Drive it for a while and keep topping if off till it has more problems and then just junk the car and start fresh.
I already answered this https://carkiller.com/scottykilmer/qa/leaking-oil-keep-or-sell/
Thank you, I really appreciate the feedback. It was my first time on the site and I got a bit discouraged when I saw short/simple-two-option questions being answered right away. It felt like mine would be ignored so I reworded my question in hopes of getting some helpful response.
I still have the Sentra. It's still running well if you ignore the leak. I tried Lucas and it seems like the leak slowed it down. I'll look into AT-205 and likely try it out on my next oil change.
We'll likely keep it for 20k more miles and sell it as a 1k car. That way we avoid paying to replace the tires
I'm firmly in the "Sell" camp on this one.
I have a 2014 Nissan Sentra with 130,000 highway miles. I noticed it started leaking oil at 90,000 below between where the transmission and engine meet. I replaced the pcv value several times. It did lessen the blow by and slowed the engine leak, but only for a short time. I estimated that the car now leaks about 8 quarts of oil every 5,000 miles. We don't want to go through the hassel of selling it for $2-3,000, and we figured we can simply add oil since it's cheap. Should I still change the oil every 5k miles since the oil still looks clean due to me adding so much new oil. Someone recommended using Lucas. Is it worth keeping it since it's not giving us other issues?
sell
It definitely sounds like the rear main seal and I would highly advise against any additive sealant they do far more harm than good especially if the leak is that large it won’t help. If your not looking to put that much money into the car I would sell it or just keep driving it as is and keep the oil full. It’ll just be annoying but as long as the oils full it won’t hurt anything
I would say you are in a position to start saving for the inevitable replacement of your car. Maybe it will die in a month, maybe it will die in a year. You probably won’t get much money for it at all so save now and when it finally dies, send it to a scrap yard and don’t get another Nissan.
