I have yet to put my car on jack stands and give it a good look, but I am really confused as to what could have happened. Here is what I know -

My wife and I went to her parents house for Christmas on Christmas eve. They live 20 minutes from us. When we got there, I parked in the driveway. My car remained there until the 26th, unmoved. My mother in law needed to get her car out of the garage so I went outside and started mine up (it was 28 degrees outside and my windows were iced) to get the defroster going and then I moved a car that was parked behind me. I got out of the car I parked and ran up to mine, scraped the windshield and rear window and pulled my car down to the street....aprox. 20 feet. When I walked up the path to the driveway, I saw a little more than 4 quarts of oil on the ground and a trail of oil all the way to the spot on the street where I parked. I did my best to clean up the oil and got the car towed to my house.

I didn't deal with it at all that day (yesterday) and today I took off the skid plate but I don't see anything out of the norm. Mind you...the car is low to the ground, but I could feel the drain plug and it is on tight. I noticed some oil sitting underneath the filter so I moved the coolant resivour out of the way (as if I was doing an oil change) and looked around down there with a flash light, but I again didn't see anything strange. I tried to move the oil filter around but it had no play in it at all. Then I took the oil filter off to see if I could get a better look, but still, nothing out of the norm other than a lot of oil over the block. From what I could tell, all the bolts on the drain pan looked fine too.

The only maintainence issues I have with my car right now (other than this one) are bad engine mounts and I need new rotors since my car shakes when I brake. I'm fixing those both this week btw.

Any ideas as to how I could have dropped all of my oil? Do you think something could have shook loose?

 

I guess I'll post the solution to the problem in the chance that anybody does a search for a similar problem. The O-ring on the oil cooler slipped and the oil was leaking out of there. It's a 2 dollar part @ ecstuning.com. Easy fix, thankfully.

 

The same thing happened to me in the cold *** weather. Turned it on and noticed a weird sound from under the hood so I opened it up and saw oil spraying EVERYwhere.

Luckily it was a cheap fix.

Glad you fixed it.

 

Happy that it worked out easily and cheaply for you - probably one of the rare times that what appears to be a major problem turns out to be a quick and easy fix.

 

The same thing seems to have happened to me about 3 days ago. It was probably 20 degrees outside, I had my dad go start up my car for me (to warm it up) I walked out there to leave and there was about 3-4 quarts of oil sitting in the driveway. . .I jacked it up looked like there was oil dripping from where the oil filter is at. Oil filter was tight tight absolutly no play. Everything else looks good though. . .Its done this a little before in the really cold weather (maybe like a 2 inch circle) but it seems like once the engine heats up it stopped but not this time.

Should the O-Ring between the engine and oil cooler be a good place to start?

 

Pulled the oil cooler. . .sure enough the o-rings guides had broken, not to mention it was super brittle and broke in about 3-4 places. Ordering one from ECSTuning.com today.