Looks to me like the rear main seal. If so it’s not a cheap repair due to the labour to separate the engine and trans. But you also have oil in front of the rack so it could be blowing around. Clean it up and then run it to see if you can locate the leak.

 

And check your oil level regularly - and note the date and mileage each time - to determine the rate of loss.

 

Thank you both for your information. I haven’t noticed a major loss of oil, just driven it about 7-8000km around the east part of Australia, had no issues or loss of any oil. So when they dealership said “massive oil leak” I wasn’t believing anything they said.

 

That leak seems to be coming from the front of the engine as the sump and steering rack is saturated.
It's a fair bit in front to be a rear main seal, check front section of sump.

TonyB

 

If in North America that would be covered under the extended emissions warranty. Not sure if the same in upside-down land.

 

Yeah I think they have the “Dieselgate warranty” which is essentially the same thing from what I am reading. Thank you for this, I will look into it further.

 

Could the oil they found be from a previous service where oil was splashed all over when someone changed the oil filter?
No oil loss after ~5k miles is a good thing.
The mystery of my '11 VR6 is that my oil level goes down after ~ 2k miles and I don't see any oil from down below. I had the valve cover and gasket changed as the gasket was leaking and the PCV diaphragm was bad so I thought that was it, but no.

 

Could the oil they found be from a previous service where oil was splashed all over when someone changed the oil filter?
No oil loss after ~5k miles is a good thing.
The mystery of my '11 VR6 is that my oil level goes down after ~ 2k miles and I don't see any oil from down below. I had the valve cover and gasket changed as the gasket was leaking and the PCV diaphragm was bad so I thought that was it, but no.

Yeah, I had asked that too. The fact that the dealership made a big deal out of it and said it was a “massive oil leak” and took photos but didn’t have time to get a rag and clean it up to check and see where the oil is coming from blows my mind. It’s all about the money to some people it seems.

I asked if it could be old oil but they kept ensuring it was a “massive oil leak” but where’s the leak coming from if it’s so big?
Thank you for the suggestions!

 

Like I said before, just keep checking your oil level to see how massive the leak actually is.

 

This, you could have a small leak that’s just been making a mess for some time. I have a slight RMS weep on mine. But I don’t loose any oil so just living with it.

If you do have a major leak it should be dripping while it’s running. You could remove the belly pans and run the engine for a while with some card board under the car to see if you are getting any active dripping.

 

A fairly common leak is not from the rear main seal but from between the timing chain cover and engine which makes it look like it's coming from the rear main seal. The photos after it's been washed also show the drip from around that bolt, if it was an RMS you should have dripps from those two holes from the gearbox The sealant deteriorates over time leading to the leak but I've never seen one get to the dripping point. Especially if you have never noticed oil on your floor or need to top it up it is most likely a slow leak that just gets blown by the wind while driving and covers everything. Imo if you have a warranty get them to fix it, if not give it a wash and keep an eye on it but nothing too urgent, it is unlikely you'll have a catastrophic failure that will leave you stuck on the side of the road. My 08 has had this since I bought it two years ago and hasn't changed a bit.

 

I've just had the oil filter housing replaced due to a leak, oil located at the front of the engine...

 

I had my high-pressure diesel pump cause this on my 2013 TDI,
Look to see if you have oil pooled in the valley between the heads, in my case it filled up there and ran down the front and rear of the engine presenting as rear main and front seal
good luck
Sammy J

 

I recently had a similar thing with what looked like power steering fluid all down the underside. One day there was a poolof oil on my garage floor, and all under the car.
But the power steering fluid level (and everything else we could think of checking) was fine.

Kept monitoring it, and in the end concluded that I must have run over a bottle of power steering fluid or something similar!

 

Oh yeah I remember that, nothing else ever became of that huh?

 

Looks somewhat similar to my 2011 TDI last year. It was the timing chain cover seal. It was covered under the extended emission warranty (aka deiselgate), which was a good thing.

The dealer had my car for two weeks. In order to drop the engine and replace the gasket, they took out the front drive train, transmission, and complete exhaust. All said they then had to replace all the associated gaskets and seals. Service manager said the bill would have been $15K, which nobody in the right mind would pay.