I believe I was the initiator of the thread that discussed this in
August. On a trip over to Santa Cruz, CA we noticed once we returned
home a film of oil, actually it was many little beads of oil all over
the rear hatch.

Taking the collective advice of this list I did two things that have
since solved the problem:

I. Changed the oil cooler o-ring.

2. Never fill the engine with more than 4 quarts of oil when the oil is changed.

Several road trips later and this has not happened again.

Hope this helps.

Jim
1991 Syncro Westy

On 11/6/05, BA <ande@san.rr.com> wrote:
> Hi, all,
>
> This was discussed once (as far as I could find) in the archive, last
> August.  The sole response to the described problem was "look under
> the engine ... if it's sufficient to put an oily film on your back
> hatch, the cause will be obvious".
>
> Except ... it's not obvious!  Not to us, nor to the VW repair shop
> where we take our Vanagon.  And the repair shop has so far not steered
> us wrong. (Our shop-supplied engine has not yet done 10,000 miles. And
> it isn't a re-conditioned engine ... it's a new VW engine.)
>
> The best suggestion the repair shop could offer was that we'd been on
> newly-oiled roads.  That just doesn't fit.
>
> So I wonder ... has anyone else had this happen, and if so what were
> the suggestions and (hopefully) fix for the problem?
>
>
> Just to make the question more interesting, we're off to San Felipe,
> Baja Norte, Mexico, next weekend - filmy hatch or not!!!  I (the more
> adventure-conservative of us two) have decided that if I'm in an older
> vehicle that needs attention, I'd rather have that happen in Baja than
> in the US.  Those folx know how to cherish good, old vehicles!
>
>
> B&S
> '87 Westy 'Esmerelda Blanc'
> SoCal
>