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In general my car doesn't leak any oil, however twice this year I've found oil on the garage floor. The most recent occasion being this morning. I parked the car last night after a 200 mile trip home from Lincoln. There's been a considerable oil leak on the right hand side of the engine. It did this earlier in the year and the only thing I can think of is both times on the trip home we got stuck for around an hour in heavy traffic. It's done over 1200 miles this year on both short and long trips, runs fine doesn't get hot and apart from these 2 episodes never leaks at all. I cleaned up the mess in the engine bay and had it running again this morning and there's no sign of any leak??
I'm confused!

I had an oil leak on the right hand side of the engine. In the course of replacing anything rubber I found that the O rings in the oil pump were so brittle they fell apart in pieces when I tried to dig them out. After replacing the oil leak disappeared.

Mine appears to be further forwards, as it's all over the steering rack.

Best way to find out is to give the engine a good clean and keep an eye out for where it's leaking. Could be the sump gasket, water pump leaking oil through the tell tale slot, front crankshaft seal etc etc. Personally, if my engine was leaking i'd whip it out and change the lot as a matter of course if you're not sure when they were last changed. a weekends work tops.

The sump gasket was only done a couple of years ago, I'm going to renew the oil pump and transfer housing 'o' rings first and see if that works as it's the easiest option. If not I'll take the engine out at some point and replace everything.

What happens if you overfill with engine oil ? Is there a weep hole/one way valve type thing for excess oil to escape from ?
I think I overfilled mine by a modest amount, and now my "teaspoon a month" amount has become a "teaspoon a week" amount.
I know it is not causing any harm, but it saddens/annoys me. Like my car is bleeding.

Hi,
Have you checked around the fuel pump gasket, if the bolts are over tightened the housing face can become distorted, also there is a
small hole under the pump for fuel to escape if the diaphragm fails, oil can sometimes get to there and leak out.
If the sump was off a few years ago would be worth checking bolts as the gaskets can sometimes shrink/loosen of a bit, but again
don't over tighten as its easy to distort the sump around the bolt holes as the gaskets compress really easy. If you take the sump off
rest the bolt face on the edge of a long block of wood or similar and with a small to medium ball pien hammer tap down each hole that is not level so that the gasket mating face will sit flat.

Regards Scott.