So on my dad's 1997 Camry LE I4 with almost 50k miles on it (yeah it's barely driven because he takes the bus to work in downtown), there is a puddle of oil sitting on top of what I think is the automatic transmission block and the car had some overheating problems. I took some pictures and was wondering if you guys can make sense of where the oil leak might be coming from.
My dad took the car to the stealership and I think he got pretty much screwed because they charged him $800 for parts/labor diagnosing the overheating issue and replaced the upper/lower radiator hoses along with a new thermostat. The overheating issues went away immediately after that, but there's more to this, which I will talk about later. They claimed the hoses were "soft"
and the thermostat wasn't operating correctly, which caused the overheating issues (that part I believed). They also went ahead and replaced the oil pan gasket and the valve cover gasket, which they said had oil leaking out from. I thought that changing the valve cover gasket would fix the oil puddle sitting right on top of the transmission block but nope, a new puddle has already formed since the last time I cleaned up that area, plus the oil looks new. And to my suprise, today I looked at the coolant reservoir tank and it was hitting "LOW". The dealer had just filled up the coolant after they replaced all the hoses and thermostat and there's no way the car could have drank so much coolant in one month so I looked around the radiator and near the bottom I saw red liquid (coolant) and realized the radiator was probably leaking. I know the radiator was replaced less than a year ago by a trusted mechanic and how did it already fail on me, except for a manufacturer defect? But I was thinking that the stealership probably did something and broke it intentionally/accident in order to charge me another $520 for the radiator/labor
They asked if I wanted the job done but I told them that I'm going to bring it back to the collision shop to see if they will replace it for free under their lifetime warranty plan but the shop said they will first have to see if it's a defect or if something hit it and broke, which probably will not be covered. In any case, if neither shop decides to fix it, I will probably take on the job myself.
So I took the car back to that stealership and asked them to double check their work and see what's going on with the oil leak. They said they didn't see that oil leak the first time the car was brought in (more like they didn't bother to check everywhere around the engine) and that it would cost $120 just to take apart the head and whatever is above that area to see what's going on, unless it's related to the valve cover gasket they replaced then it would be free of charge, but I doubt they would even admit that so I would have to be prepared to shell out another $120 or ask a reputable mechanic shop to take a look at it.
But before I do all that, what should I do guys? My dad plans to keep the car for another 2 years max probably. But if it costs an arm to fix, might probably keep the car longer since so much was spent on the car. The radiator definitely needs to be fixed but for the oil leak, is it worth it? Where do you guys think it's leaking from so that I can arm myself with some knowledge before I bring it anywhere else for service.
-If this helps in any way, the car puffs out bluish/heavy smoke during cold starts for 5-8 seconds. Don't know if this is related to an overfill of engine oil by jiffylube a while ago, causing valve seals to go bad and leaking oil into the cylinders, so when the car is cold-started, it burns that oil and causes the blue smoke?
-The idle is at 1800-2000 rpm every cold start for about 3 minutes (IACV?). After I put it in drive, car idles normal I guess. The car's engine also has a grinding sound until it's warmed up (not exactly sure where it's coming from, but also only during cold starts).
-During high speeds on freeways over 2500-3000 rpm, I smell rotten eggs inside the cabin if air is in RECIRCULATE mode (but not if it's in FRESH mode). Could this be caused by a bad cat converter or oil dripping onto exhaust manifold? That's most of the mechanical problems I can think of at the moment.
Gosh, this sure was a lot to read if you hanged through this far and I appreciate your time and any advice/comments you can give me to fix this issue! Thanks again for your time.
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