How serious is this?

Just bought my truck a few weeks ago and I was looking over it tonight just trying to see if I had any leaks anywhere and noticed this... How serious is this and how long can I drive it before I have to get it fixed?

 

Where is the drip coming from????

 

Where the engine and transmission meet, I believe it might be the rear main bearing seal.

 

Did you buy it from a dealership or private sale?
If you got it from a dealership it may be covered under warranty.

 

No, it was private sale

 

Makes sense. Looks like it's been seeping for some time.

 

Yep, looks like rear main seal leak. I'd clean in and keep an eye on it, while planning to get it addressed. If its slow you have some time, but I would not ignore it.

 

Thank you very one, I'll keep an eye on it and make sure to replace it soon.

 

Ya looks like the rear main seal.
This is how mine looked on my 15 tundra.

 

That's worse looking.....

 

How many miles on your truck?

 

Shouldn't be this covered under 5 year 60k powertrain warranty? Are you beyond that?

 

Did you get it fixed and how much did you pay?

 

I got it with 97,000

I believe the last owner used it to tow cause it had a break pedal for the trailer installed.

 

98,300 miles right now.

 

It was fixed under warranty.

 

Clean it real good and monitor it. That’ll at least let you know how bad it is leaking. My 2010 had the rear main seal replaced twice, but both were under warranty.

 

Take it in to the dealer to see if the repair is covered by warranty.

(Edit: Ah, yeah, forget that...at 98K+, you've blown through the 60K mile warranty. But...you can get a repair estimate.)

If not covered by warranty, rear main seal replacement will be an expensive repair. I wouldn't be surprised if owner repair cost was $2K (wag). If I had to pay, I would take a position of "watchful waiting" to pay later rather than sooner. Rear main lip seals do not fail catastrophically; i.e. sudden total failure causing complete loss of engine oil. Failure will likely be a slow progression. Your sign to begin thinking about having the repair done will be a drip puddle or stain on your driveway or garage floor, and later, an undercarriage wet with oil film.

Keep a close watch on your engine oil level. Your greatest risk will be hours-long travel without regular stops to check oil level. If you do a lot of long distance travel, then the pita may justify springing for the repair sooner.

 

Is this common? I've never heard of an auxiliary break pedal for a trailer. How does it work? electric? hydraulic?

 

Take it to a dealer and see if they'll cover some of it. You're under the 5 yrs so you never know.
Ford just covered a hood paint repair for me, I was under on age but over twice the miles.

 

It doesn't look that bad. The rear main seal started leaking on our 2012 Rav4 around 90k miles. It stopped leaking since then but one thing I did to be safe was switch to Mobile 1 full synthetic high mileage. It supposedly has a conditioner in it for seals. Other people have reported that it helped stop a slow leak like yours. Some people feel synthetic will just leak even more but that didn't happen in my situation.

 

I'm honing in on this comment. Is this something that has to/is going to have to be redone on a semi-regular basis?

 

Do you mean my comment that my 2010 was done twice? I ran that truck hard and it was SC. My 2018 shows no signs of leaks.

It’s like the cam tower leak, some get it more than once and some never get it. Neither of my tundras had it.

 

Yeah; and yeah, I can see how driving it like you stole it with a SC on it might contribute. LOL I'm calmer now.