What Are the Causes of Gas in an Oil Pan?

A badly adjusted carburetor can send too much gas into the carburetor, and the overflow will eventually wash down the cylinder walls and into your oil pan. This also tends to foul the spark plugs. Thus, one way to check for this problem is to pull one of plugs and look for blackening on it.

Cars that are more than ten years old usually have mechanical fuel pumps. The fuel pump is attached to one side of the engine; if you notice fuel leaking from the connection between the two, your fuel pump has almost certainly failed. Unless you are an expert home mechanic, fixing this problem should be left to the professionals.

If your vehicle's engine is running with a stuttering or knocking sound, it is possible that one cylinder is not firing correctly, which leads to gas condensing in the faulty cylinder and draining into your oil pan. Accurately diagnosing this problem requires some specialized testing equipment and needs to be done by a trained mechanic.

The gasket that sits between the engine block and cylinder head can "blow," leading to coolant leaking into the oil or exhaust fumes being pushed into the coolant system. Driving with a blown head gasket can easily ruin the engine, leading to costly repairs. Your mechanic can run a compression test on your engine; if there is a leak in the head gasket, the compression will be lower than expected.