Oil In The Engine Cylinder

[felty52]

i have a 2002 is 300 5 speed. i just got back from florida on sunday and the drive from the airport is about an hour and a half. on the way home the car ran just fine, i even stopped for gas and it started back up like normal. when i got home i shut the car off and unloaded the car. keep in mind i didnt "beat" the car on the way home. On Wednesday i started the car up and just backed it down the drive way maybe 80 feet and put it back in its parking spot. everything went as normal there. i went out to start the car today and it just cranked and cranked. i tried to give it a lil gas as i turned it over it stumbled as i was cranking but still nothing i did however notice a lil smoke out of the back during this process. i opened the hood and pulled the 2nd spark plug in from the firewall. before i pulled it i noticed some oil around the base of the plug. i pulled the plug and there was oil all over the plug. i took a long screw driver and put it down the hole to see how much oil was in the cylinder. it showed about an 1/8 of an inch. i use 5-30 synthetic from mobil one and i just had the timing belt changed the car has 92000 miles. if anyone has any ideas i could really use some insight.

[bartkat]

Hopefully it's not something internal. The first thing that comes to mind would be a leak in the valve cover gasket.

[djspawn00]

just like bartkat said... sounds like a leaky valve cover gasket but i would think that it would cause a misfire and not stop the car from starting all together.

[felty52]

thanks for insight guys. i have a friend coming over today to help me take a better look at it.

[Parking17]

I had an Accord do th same thing after having the timing belt replaced. When they replaced the valve cover, the seal was not seated properly. Since the plugs were recessed on that car, there are additional seals around the plug that were not flush since the entire cover was not seated. Oil got into the cylinder. Car ran, but almost stalled while idling.

Pulled the valve cover off, replaced all seals and reassembled. Problem fixed.

Issue with the Lexus is that I cannot even see the plugs or the wires! Good luck to you.

[felty52]

well after my friends stopped by today to look at my car there guess was a head gasket as well. hes been a honda mechanic for more then a few years and works on other makes as well. ive always trusted his opinion so i ordered the parts up today and hope to be running in a month again.