Questions and Answers

Dodge Neon Has Gas In The Oil Q. On my 1996 Lincoln Town Car with AOD Transmission and 4.6 liter V-8. I have a slight transmission fluid leak. Where the drive shaft enters the transmission, I believe this is the extension housing, I have a very small pee size leak. The fluid is detected when I touch the area with a rag or my hand, it does not drip or run. It is red in color and very clean. Is this a seal that should be replace now or is this normal to has some fluid around this area? The car has 80,000 miles on it, and the weather has been constantly at 90 or more degrees which is not normal for my area. The transmission fluid is very clean and changed every 15,000 miles. Is this leak major or is it normal from conditions, I do mostly highway driving and minor city driving. I parked the car on a hill and the leak did not increase at all. Thanks, Frank

I could smell a burning scent, so I looked at the spark plugs. All four were black, which usually indicated a rich air/fuel mixture. While I was looking at the spark plugs, I noticed they were saturated with oil. I ended up changing the gasket seal and the spark plug tube seals. I also noticed fuel was in the oil.

I replaced the map sensor. (Which was showing low voltage, indicating the need for replacement.) and changed the oil. The sensor went off and the car ran well for about 60 miles. After that, the check engine light went back on, there was more fuel in the new oil that I put in, and the spark plugs were also fouled again.

I am in a peculiar situation because the Dodge shop says that it could be just about any of the sensors, the computer itself (PCM), the fuel filter/regulator, or possibly the fuel pump. Oh, did I mention the fuel injectors? The oil light went on recently too.

The best guess I have is that it is not the fuel injectors, because all four are fouling out the plugs, and odds are against four injectors breaking at once. I am going to replace the fuel filter/regulator, also. That leaves the pump, every expensive sensor in the car, or the even more expensive PCM.

Of course, my budget is tight, so replacing everything will get costly and I heard that if all that is replaced it could still be a problem with the engine (something about piston valves or whatnot).

I would appreciate any information you could passed down to me so I can make an more informed guess on what to replace.

1997 Dodge Neon
2.0 liter engine
Fuel injected
Manual transmission
90,000 miles

Thanks,
Patrick

A. You are right, there are a lot of expensive things you can replace to try and solve this problem. And no guarantee that after everything is replaced it will be fixed. That is why I'm not going to recommend anything to replace. Instead I will give you some things to check.

Since there is gas in the oil, it's pretty safe to assume there is way too much fuel entering the combustion chamber. The first thing I would do is look at the fuel pressure. A bad fuel pressure regulator will cause excessively high fuel pressure, possibly as high as 90 psi. This will push too much fuel through the injectors and foul the plugs. Also when the engine is off, it may continue to push fuel out through the injectors and into the cylinder. If the car is sitting over night, the fuel will drip down, past the rings, into the oil.

If the fuel pressure is too high, it could damage all four injectors.