I have a 2001 Mercury Sable 174000 miles with a small rear main engine seal leak. about a quarter’s size of oil hits the ground a night. I have been using a synthetic blend for about 50000 miles. Should I change to high milage oil or one of these sealer products I see? Or let it alone, I am about a 1/2 quart to a a quart low at the 5000 oil change if I don’t add any.
You can try one of the high mileage oils such as Valvoline Max Life. These have seal conditioners that slightly swell the seals to stop oil leaks.
The son has a Jeep that had a rear main seal leak. And when he started using the Max Life the leak stopped.
Tester
Replacing the seal would be an expensive proposition at this point. You can buy an awfull lot of oil for the $1000 to pull the tranny and oil pan to replace the seal.
I’d opt for @Testers post and use a oil with seal conditioners or a high quality additive that should restore seals.
Yosemite
Any risk when using the high mileage oil?
Is there any danger that it well cause havoc with seals that are currently in fine shape?
If you are certain it is coming from the rear main seal, I’d just ignore it and put a pan on the garage/driveway floor to catch the oil drips where you park your car. With 174K, eventually , more likely sooner, either the clutch or automatic transmission will need a rebuild job, and then it’s a cheap and simple matter to install a new rear main seal.
I’ve used high mileage oil on a car where some of the seals were new a fresh, but others were old and most likely hard and cracked. The seal conditioners did not harm the new seals and slowed down the leaking from the older seals.
Oil leaks; why God made corrugated boxboard.
I’ve noticed the parking spaces in the nearby apartment parking lot pretty much all have some oil stains showing. Stuff leaking from cars parked overnight remains a common thing.
My wife’s old cookie sheets with kitty litter on them are the perfect oil catchers. Most cars start leaking oil as they age, and small leaks are tolerable. I only ever had to fix an oil leak as it became major; on the rear bearing seal of our 1994 Nissan Sentra. That cost $550 or so.