Sorry if this is a dumb question but I'm really confused.

I have multiple 3 oil spots on the ground under the front of my 02 996tt.

What is this coming from? Maybe oil coolers up front?

Did a search and don't see anything related to this on 6 speed or google.

Any thoughts?

Also what should the oil pressure gauge be at on the dash, mine idles around 3.5 and on the highway its pinned at 5 except between shifts when it drops to 4 briefly.

Yesterday I did a 600 mile road trip and during the trip I had 3 instances of the oil failure indicator coming on the guage drops to 0 and then back to 5. Anybody else experienced this before?

Engine says oil level is full BTW with its self test feature.

Thanks

 

Radiators are up front. You may have a punctured one with a rock. I wouldn't neglect it.

 

Sounds like the two may be unrelated (leak and gauge). The oil pressure sender may have a wire loose or is bad. It is behind the oil filter on top of the engine. Those readings you are getting sound high. Warm, mine at idle is around 1.5...

There could be 3 sources for the fluid up front. Coolant from the radiators - would be near the front of the car or sides in front of the tires. Brake fluid from the reservoir. Or pentosin from the clutch reservoir. You can locate those in the trunk and see if the oil is under that location...

Coolant will be orange and watery/oily and the others will be oily. If it is pentosin, I wouldn't get it on your skin...

 

an oil leak from up front would be either from the power steering rack or the clutch slave reservoir.
pentosin has a dark greenish color .

 

Thanks for the info guys, I haven't figured it out yet..

Clear, oily, burnt smell.

 

check your front diff...for leaks.

 

My 996TT oil pressure reads right at the 4.0 mark at normal operating RPM's. Is that normal?

 

Oil pressure varies with engine oil temperature and rpm.

Not sure but willing to risk an opinion the oil pressure gages in these cars not *that* accurate but better then nothing at all.

My observation of my 03 Turbo is with engine fully up to operating temperature at idle oil pressure 1.5 bar maybe a needle width more.

Oil pressure at an engine speed of 3000 is 4.5 bar.

One has to consider the ambient temperature, too, at least based on my observations. On milder days, early in the AM when ambient temperature down in the high 50s low 60s engine oil pressure a bit higher -- needle width difference is the difference I'm seeing.

Later in day when ambient climbs higher -- as it has the last couple of days -- and reaches high 90s even 100 to 102 -- oil pressure at idle and 3000 rpms lower. 1.5 bar and 4.5 bar. That extra bit of oil pressure represented by a needle's width no longer there.

I do not have the coolant temperature readings yet to match to to the oil pressure readings to see if coolant temperature climbs and thus raises oil temperature.

Oh, oil is Mobil 1 0w-40 or more recently Mobil 1 10w-40 "high mileage' oil. Turbo only has (at time of last oil change) 17K miles but I wanted to see if I could note any difference in engine sound at startup and cold idle.
Engine seems to be a bit quieter at startup but will next oil change switch to using Mobil 1 5w-50 oil.

Oh, didn't really seem to notice any difference in oil pressure at any engine speed or temperature between the two oils.

Will see if 5w-50 has any effect on oil pressure.

Sincerely,

Macster.

 

Macster,

Thanks, that was an excellent answer and I appreciate all the additional information. Keep us posted when you do your next oil change, I would be interested to see what the result is.

Take care, Dan.

 

Mine was doing this an it was the front driver side differential seal.