I found some newly dripped oil on my garage floor this morning from my 2001 LS430 with 117,000 miles. From what I am able to see from crawling underneath.....it is coming from the bottom of a tube going into the transmission pan on the driver's side of the car. Is this the tube for the transmission stick? Is there a seal going into the the pan? I am planning on getting it to my trust worthy local mechanic soon. Any ideas or feedback would be greatly appreciated.

 

Color of the oil? Any red in at to tell it's transmission fluid? Probably just need to put it up on a lift and double check. Oil pan is the more common on the lower engine. If it does turn out to be either the transmission or oil pan then I recommend you use the pre-made gasket. Using a sealant gasket maker can be very inaccurate and excess can get into the engine or transmission. At the factory robots applied this material in exact amounts and at the right exact place. Not realistic for a dealer or shop to do this by hand.

 

My mothers 2006 GS430 had a transmission pan gasket leak a few months ago. We had it replaced and everything is good. She only has 30K miles on the car and it kind of surprised me. Maybe that is what is going on with your LS...

 

UPDATE: Turns out the leak is from the driver's side valve cover gasket. I happened to do the passenger side over a year ago which is more time intensive. It was leaking from the back of the cover towards the firewall and a few of the screws were quite lose which were tightened. Most likely it won't help, but I'll keep an eye on it. Cost to repair will be one hour labor plus parts ($100+parts). When I replaced the passenger side, I replaced the valve cover gasket, grommets, and spark plug seals. It's quite common on our cars.

 

Thanks for sharing the info! Let us know if that stops the leak or if you have to replace the gasket.

 

The tech only tightened the 2 screws in the back of the gasket where it was leaking. He did not want to tighten all the gasket screws telling me that might do more harm then good.

 

Glad you found the source. Valve cover gasket are the most common.

 

Thanks for your help.

 

Looks like the valve cover tightening (as I anticipated) did not stop the leak. Will be picking up my car this afternoon at my trust worthy local mechanic. $54 for Valve Cover gasket, 9 grommets, and 4 spark plug seals + one hour labor ($100 approximately for labor). It's funny how whatever issues one of our cars encounters at certain mileage, most need the same service.