just been out to top up my power steering fluid and noticed a couple of spots of oil just under the the front. Traced them up and looked though the gap in the front spoiler and saw a mess of black oily substance underneath the offside dump valve. I immediatley checked the oil level to see if i had been running dry (and hence my high temperature issues, see thread "New z owner") but it was on full and seemed nice and clear and new, unlike the stuff coating the bottom of my car. Iv checked all other fluid level and seem fine apart from cant see how to check transmission fluid level (manual box). Could it be a crack in the gearbox or something like that? It is deffinetly prominantely on the offside that the oil has appeared to could it be my left turbo leaking oil? I described before in my other thread that my car was gaining heat during idle so i have not been able to let the car cool down probably before turning off, even though I have taken the precautions of taking it easy and coasting alot before the end of my journey, the water temp is never below 80C when i turn off hence i have been turning off after about 30 seconds at standstill to prevent it getting even hotter. The other thing i could think that has caused me the problem is that i was going over one of the straddeling type speed bumps and it scraped the bottom of the car, it was very very low speed but sounded quite harsh. No immediate noticable problems before that and i there is never any smoke from the exhaust. I am going to take it to the zen garage if they can fit me in, or any other garage if not but any help from you guys in the meantime would be much appreciated

You can tell if it's gearbox oil. Doesn't smell like engine oil and is a scarlet colour.

if you can, clean off all of the old oil then you can see exactly where it's comming from. It mignt not be oil. It could be power steering fluid. The pipe beloe the power steering canister is known to deteriate over the years and leak onto the altenator and knacker it.

 

You need to clean it up and find out where it's coming from - do it now before you take it to the garage so that it's got time to leak again. If you do this then you'll save the garage a job and some time.

 

Good luck

 

Jack

 

...if you are peranoid about temperature, open the bonnet when you stop.

Thanks jack. Unfortunatly i had already taken it to the garage but they were able to identify it as a leaking power steering cooler (small radiator infront of the main rad), which rings true as i had to top up power steering fluid as my hicas light came on and the leaking oil had a red colour of ATF.

Has anyone had any experience of this fault before and would they know how much it would cost (Nissan only part?) part + labour or is it a straightforward enough job that i could do myself. If so how? Also, is there any recommended outlets that would stock such parts that would be cheaper than going to Nissan directly.

Thanks

Tom