Argh..... I am so careful about doing my oil changes with someone I trust. So i went to my regular place, noticed an oil leak (my car has never leaked anything in the past) took it back - the individual had cracked the seal, they replaced it. But now 2 weeks later there is something on the ground again. I'm so pissed. Any ideas what it might be? PS I'm a girl so I like to go in knowing exactly what is wrong so I don't get ripped off. Thanks!!!
There are two seals. One on the sump drain plug that should be replaced at every oil change but often is not. Another on the oil filter. Must be changed every time the filter is changed, and this is the most likely point of leakage. John (Britprius)
There's something sort of odd/missing in your mechanic's description: "cracked the seal" sounds a bit off. To enlarge on what John said, there's a washer on the drain plug, and there's a large diameter O-ring on the oil filter housing. The main problem with drain plug washer could be that they forgot/neglected to put one on, didn't torque the bolt properly, and/or left the old one in place so that there's now two on, and this is somehow causing a leak. I kinda doubt this, especially since you've already alerted them: it's the most obvious/easy thing to check. My hunch is the O-ring is not positioned correctly on the oil filter housing. It's either in the wrong position (it's supposed to be in a groove, near the end but not quite), or somehow got pinched or misaligned during install. Checking a problem with the oil filter O-ring pretty much necessitates doing another oil change: there's no way to take it off and check it without the oil draining. So maybe they're stalling on this? A long shot would be your oil pan gasket just decided to start leaking. That's the black gauge-metal pan at bottom of engine, sealing against an engine flange with lots of closely spaced bolts. But that's a long shot; it's not typically touched during an oil change.
Check where the leak is coming from, then follow the leak show us pictures and a video if possible and we can better diagnose where the leak is coming from.
