Help! -- 1985 280SE oil leaks

[eric2003]

Hi there,

As most of you know, the 85 280SE is a grey market model. Right now, it has a little over 244K miles. Since I acquired it about eight months ago, the oil leaks are getting worse. Lately, I need to add a quarter of oil each week which is about 150 miles of driving to maintain oil at the acceptable level. It has made the driveway and garage floor really messy.

From look under the hood, the most of oil leaks are coming from low oil pan and also from oil dipstick. I can see the droplets around the oil dipstick tube and oil pan every time I park the car. For the oil pan, I would guess it may need a new oil pan gasket and maybe even a new oil pan. For the leaks from dipstick, I don't know if it needs a o-ring seal or maybe something else.

I will take the car to a independent Mercedes shop to have them look at it for about 30 dollars. Meanwhile, I would like to hear from you expert options about what might be the cause. The 280 SE is not a very popular model in US, but hopefully experience with other W126 models should apply. And I hope I can find the parts here in PartsShop.

I am very excited to join the discussion board. It sure provides lots of valuable information to me.

Thanks in advance.

Eric