Good evening everyone,

I have been noticing that my car hasn't been driving like usual, it feels a little sluggish. Today I decided to take out the spark plugs just to have a look at them, one of the four (the first one on the drivers side) was drenched in oil when I pulled it out. The other three are nice and dry and need to be replaced. I am very concerned about said spark plug because it means that theres oil in a part of that cylinder its not supposed to be in. The car does not sputter, or makes weird noises and I dont see smoke coming out the exhaust, however the exhaust smells pretty strong when the car is first turned on. Again the only reason I decided to check the spark plugs was the slight drop in performance I felt.

Does anybody know why this is happening? or has this happened to anyone before?

Thanks in advance for any and all help I receive.

 

There are a few ways oil can get in there: worn rings, leaky valve guides (not sure if we have them), or head gasket. One thing you could do is get a used oil analysis done...they cost about $30. http://www.blackstone-labs.com/free-test-kits.php
If the rings were bad, you'd get fuel dilution in your oil.

The other thing you can do is get a compression test done...but that'd test how well the rings, valves, and head gasket are sealing.

how religious are you with oil changes? do you consume oil?

 

I bought the car with 83k and now it has 118k and I've been very consistent with changing the oil every 3000 miles. I just changed it yesterday morning. I dried up the spark plug and the coil and tightened the valve cover, I found the screws to be loose, not loose enough to hand turn though. Also, I had the timing belt replaced about 3 months ago. Anyway, I've done some research and I'm hoping is gaskets and NOT the piston rings. I'm going to check again in about 2 days to see if that helped, if not this weekend im going to take the valve cover off and inspect the gaskets.

 

I would also hope the gasket. I'd love to see some pictures if you end up taking the valve cover off!

 

I used to own a Saturn and had a similar problem. It turned out to be the valve cover gasket in that case. Have you noticed excess oil consumption (or the oil level going down too quickly)?

Best of luck!