MX-3.com

For about a week, I have notice drops of oil under the engine bay. Took the MX3 into a mechanic and he told me that oil is leaking from the valve cover, and I can see that it is. This will be about 150 to fix. However he also pointed out that oil is leaking from the distributor as well.
Now before buying this care, the previous owner said that the distributor was replaced. That's why I am not believing this mechanic 100%.

Although I have heard that MX3 could give distributors a hard time, so I am open to suggestions.
Should I go ahead and believe this mechanic? Or should I just change the valve cover and clean out the distributor and see if it still leaks?

The operation of the distributor and leaking oil are not related at all. The distributor herein referred
to as 'disty' has an o-ring seal that is a pain to seal correctly. Since you said valve cover (singular) I'll assume
4 cylinder until corrected. You can pick up a valve cover gasket and disty o-ring for much less than
150 and fix it yourself in under an hour. Your time/money situation is an unknown so no further advice
on which solution to implement can be suggested.

Pick up a tube of permatex ultra black and follow the online manual to replace the gaskets. Do not over
torque the valve cover bolts.

He initially said that the valve cover gasket, and disty oring needs to be replaced for 160. Then the mechanic told me that I have to replace the disty, valve cover gasket, disty oring for the price of 605 dollars.

He showed me oil in the Disty and said that it is leaking as well. Sigh.

It sounds like you have made up your mind already and if such this forum
can't be of further assistance on the matter.

If you would like to possibly save yourself 500 dollars on parts that may not
need to be replaced keep reading. The oil in the distributor can be normal with
a leaky seal, depends where he showed you the oil is. If you could post a picture
or describe in detail what you were shown and where that would also be helpful.
If its just light oil from the leak you can clean it with a can of WD-40 and just
reseal everything. The other bottom line is - Does the car still run / did it run
fine before/during noticing the oil leaking?

Also do mention which year and engine you have, a B6 disty is not 400 bucks.

The car is a 1995 RS 1.6 engine. There is a very light oil, maybe a 1/2 teaspoon worth inside the Disty.
I think I am going to redo the Valve gasket cover because I can see oil leaking from there. And clean the Disty and attempt to reseal everything. I know it is not $400 dollars, but he quoted me $389 for a new Disty and $75 labor. The other things were for the valve cover gasket.

I haven't made up my mine yet.

The car runs fine with no problems at all. It ran fine before I noticed the oil leaking, and ran fine after I noticed the oil leaking.

when changing the valve cover check and make sure the cam cap where the disty goes into is not cracked. I had this problem with mine replaced the cap and all was good

Thanks for the info Trevor, I will start working on it next week.