ajg617

Have had an oil leak on the floor of garage since last October. Brought the A6 in to the dealer and they said the oil filter o-ring had been installed improperly ("our bad" according to the service adviser). Continued to have oil spots on garage floor. Brought the car back in Dec with about 500 miles left on extended warranty - by that time the floor was pretty well covered. Upper timing chain covers covered under warranty. With all the snow and sub-zero temps thought that the really large wet area (about 3.5 ' diameter) was just ice/snow melt until I put my finger on the spot - fresh oil. Back to dealer two weeks ago. This time they put dye in and said the rear main seal was shot. $3500 with warranty now expired. New service manager was no help (and I've had good repair work from them for over a decade).

Question - would it not have been prudent to verify with dye no leaks back in Dec? My reasoning is that gravity will send any excess oil from the back of the engine on the lower bell housing. So how could they possibly rule out a rear main issue in Dec even if the upper timing chain covers did show some staining?

Interested in opinions. Facing a large repair bill obviously - tranny has to come out.

Sallad

How did this turn out?

ajg617

Took it to an independant Audi repair shop - wasn't the rear main. The leak was due to a warped oil filter housing where it bolts to the block. The leak in that area spread everywhere including over the rear chain covers and into a seep hole in the bell housing. $970 to fix and not a drop of oil since.

Sallad

I’m hoping that’s my issue as well, thx for the reply