Air Conditioning and smell of oil
 

I changed my oil last month and ever since I get a slight oil smell when I have the air-conditioned set to recirculate. Has anyone else experienced anything remotely similar to this?

The smell goes away and comes back - sometimes when I accelerate hard the oil smell starts and lingers for some time. When I can stop, I check for leaks but see none. My oil level isn't falling like there is a major leak and there is never any smoke. So I'm a bit clueless as to what causes the smell. At one point, I did notice that my dip stick wasn't completely pushed in which I thought *might* be the issue but it wasn't unfortunately.

If I set the air-conditioning to use the outside air I can remove the smell (which is strange). I also changed the MT oil at this same time (using sythetic oil which makes a big difference BTW). Could it possibly be the tranny? Again, I don't see any leaks - could it come through the shifter?

The car only has 3750 miles on it so I may just take it into the dealer. Of course, I don't want to have them repair something that may have been my fault.

Did you clean up the oil that spilled when you took the filter off?

Last month my wife had an oil smell in her Camry (which also has an upside-down filter) after I changed the oil and did not clean up properly. A couple of minutes with a shop towel and a can of brake clean fixed it.

Ken

Did you clean up the oil that spilled when you took the filter off?
Yup had this happen to me.

I'm not sure if it applies to the RX8, but at a recent RallyCross, the owner of the Nissan Altima I was driving filled the oil but forgot to put the cap back on, causing the entire interior to smell of oil. Did you forget? Is the dip stick stuck all the way back in?

Buy a can of Electical Safe Cleaner, Spray the crap out of the Oil Filter area, Make SURE your engine is off and cool b4 u do that.

Then you should get get the smell anymore.

Another thing to check is the gear shift knob. I was getting an oil smell mainly in fifth and sixth gear. The oil smell was not as bad in the lower gears. Using the outside air did help. I found that with an aftermarket gear shift knob, it was not screwing down far enough to seal the shift boot to the shift lever. The stock knob will seal the boot. If this is not sealed, air comes from underneath and will come out the top of the shifter boot. Small hole, but enough to let in smells. Since putting stock shifter on, no smell of oil at any speed. Hope this helps!!!!

I did clean up (what I think) is pretty thourough anyhow. I'll check again just to make sure.

I'll get a can and do what you suggest to make sure that nothing that resembles oil remains.

This is a very interesting possibility as well since I also changed the MT fluid. Just maybe.

I'll post back to this thread of anything that seems to have worked. Thanks yo everyone that have responded so far - all great ideas.

Cheers