Some of you may remember my stripped oil drain plug saga of several weeks ago. I was able to obtain and install a new oil pan and gasket without problems, and put in a new oil drain plug, along with a copper washer. The washer, plug, and pan were acquired by my mechanic. (At 100% markup from what I could have bought them from Fastlane for, I have discovered! but I guess the guy had to make a little scratch somewhere.)

Since then, I've had a leak, a fairly significant one in the way that a small head wound can be significant -- it makes a mess, a puddle about the size of half a dollar bill overnight, but isn't seriously affecting the oil supply (I check the oil level every few days and haven't had to add any in the couple hundred miles since this ill-fated oil change). The underside of the engine was so filthy from years of crud accumulation, however, that I just wasn't sure where all the oil was coming from. I could see where an oil drip was building on the pan under the drain plug whenever I was under the car, but I thought, surely all this oil isn't from that silly plug.

Well, I washed the engine Saturday evening, drove it around a bit to dry things off afterwards, and parked it on a clean dropcloth for a while, wiping all around the pan and plug. Went back a while later, and it's obvious all that leaking oil really is coming from the drain plug! The rest of the pan is pristine above the plug and around where it bolts in, yet all this oil puddles on the floor directly under the pan's plug. And I'm pretty sure I didn't strip or cross these threads at installation, as the plug went in easily and was put in by hand, then tightened with a wrench.

So my questions are, is there some gasket or washer I should have used in addition to the copper washer that came with the drain plug? Or should I be using some sort of sealer or tape on the plug threads themselves? Also, I did not use a torque wrench on the plug -- should I have?

Also, is there anything wrong with my plan of just letting the thing drip until the next oil change, replenishing with oil as necessary, rather than dumping out all that nice Mobil-1 after only a couple hundred miles?

Who would think one oil change could create such mess?