Help Needed with my e36 m3

[tricky69]

My E36 M3 EVO Smg seems to be leaking some kind of oil, i have checked the oil level and all seems fine. So does any one know what else could it be ?



>>> Edited by tricky69 on Sunday 16th January 15:04

[silverback mike]

Where from? From the front it could be either..

Engine oil,
Power steering fluid,
Brake fluid,
Antifreeze (different viscosity though)
Petrol.

From the rear,
Brake fluid,
Diff oil,
Petrol.

Check the Power steering and brake fluid levels, these sound the most likely if it isn't engine oil.

Mike.

[tricky69]

Its from the front - now that you mention it the stearing does seem heavier. Does this do any lasting damage and how much approx will it cost to fix ?

[silverback mike]

Hard to tell how much, depends what it is. The place to look under the bonnet is on the right hand side, a black cylinder. Unscrew the top, the dipstick is inside. It may be a small leak, it may be the rack, until someone gets under it it could be all manner of things.....Hopefully simple

[RichardJB]

Is the steering heavier? Or is it just psychological? M3s have fairly heavy steering as standard in my experience...

[DougT]

My E36 M3 developed a power steering leak at about 75k. The symptoms were:

1) small pools of oily stuff near the drivers side front wheel
2) completely normal steering until the fluid level got really low then:
3) when winding lock on or off (parking etc) you could feel it run out of assistance. This was very obvious, you couldn't miss it.

To top up the fluid I had to remove the thing which took air into the engine, was a bit of a pain.

Mine needed a recon rack which cost about 500 quid from a back street garage. Wish I'd paid to have bmw do it properly, I ended up selling it soon after as it just didn't seem quite right.

[tricky69]

Was going to take it down to Munich Legends for it's oil srvice, will get them to take a look at it.It is on 55k miles, and legends have always been good.
Or do you think it should go to bmw direct ?

[DougT]

Thinking about it, a specialist would make sense here. The garage I used were general bodgit and scarper merchants (yep, I'm an idiot).

[silverback mike]

I reckon Munich legends will be fine. Mind you, I have no horror stories about my local BMW dealer, I find them pretty good.