Hello everyone,
I have an Acura TL 2004. It is leaking oil from the valve cover (I believe?), but there is no puddle on the ground unless I leave it there for several days. It has been leaking for a couple months already. Yesterday, I noticed that there were white smokes coming from that area [Pic included]. It was the first time it happened. I thought it was from the oil residue so I cleaned it a bit (by spray bottle with Simple Green and wiping it away), but it still smokes after a couple second of turning the car on. What should I do?

Leak area


Closer


Also, can anyone tell me what this is? It has a crack. I just noticed it today.



Closer. It says SEP on it.


Thank you.

 

EDIT: the second picture of the leak was before I cleaned the area. I forgot to take a picture. Sorry

 

The part you circled is your side motor mount. "SEP" is part of the part#. You can find it through one of the sponsors on here. It's the easiest mount to change.

 

Thank you sir for that.

Any idea on if the smoke is from the oil residue or something else? It usually smoke from that first circled area. I'm afraid of it catching on fire if I drive long distances.

 

EDIT: smoke is from oil residue. Got the valve cover gasket replaced. All good now. Going to do side motor mount in bit. Thank you.

 

smoke was probably caused by oil hitting the exhaust precat which is the thing with the wire coming out of it. Glad you got it solved.

 

oil leaked onto the catalytic converter and caused smoke.

 

^ yup.


Btw, side motor mounts typically don't go bad on their own. In most cases, it means that the front and/or rear motor mounts are also bad which causes the side motor mounts to fail. Hopefully that's not the case. Good luck anyways.

 

Thank you all for helpful reply.

JJH, I checked the front and rear mounts, both are good. Thank you for that info.

 

I have this same leak I will be ordering a gasket set, and I think something near the bottom but I don't know where, I can't see any oil (I put some silicone gasket grease where I see it leaking on to the o2 sensor, I just can smell it and can see the vapors when it's hot.

Is there another common leak area?

 

Did you drive it to a shop? I’m a little scared of driving the car as well. I have an appointment but the shop is 10 miles away. Worried something might happen on the way there

 

Use a liberal amount of brake cleaner to get rid of the oil residue and let it dry for at least 10-minutes. You can drive and go where you need to!

Just don't spray it on a hot cat/engine and make sure it's all cool before cleaning.

 

I had a leaking valve cover gasket from the front and rear, it would smell after driving, and started to get some smoke after first startup. I’m getting it replaced at this moment, (as well as timing belt, spark plugs, thermostat, etc….). My mechanic said he see’s a lot of these valve covers leak onto the alternator, I just used AAA to tow it the 17 miles, because I haven’t used my AAA membership in forever.