hello all,

I am new the the Mitsubishi world...heck to new cars in general, been awhile since I drove a car with a radiator..hah.

But I noticed something that had me a bit concerned with my '97 mirage..while I was letting the car idle I noticed some oil in the number one( [?] closest to passenger side)spark plug hole.. it didn't appear to have come from the valve cover gasket and didn't look like any oil was spilled during oil fill up. it actually looked like it was slowly seeping out from around the spark plug from the internal side.
I removed the spark plug and it had some oil on the threads ...but the electrode looked fairly clean...alittle black but pretty clean over all..

I checked the plug next to it and it had very very little oil on it and the hole it goes into was clean..

After I cleaned the hole up and put the plugs back in I let the car idle again and even revved it a few times after it warmed up, no oil this time...least not yet.


so I guess I have a two fold question.

what dose it mean if oil is seeping out from a plug?

and how life threating is some oil on the threads?



can these be fixed easily or is the engine on its last leg....it dose run fine as of now

it's the 1.5L

a spray can of degreaser to clean off the oil spots

it may be oil from the rocker cover gasket leaking or

spilt oil from another time

as long as the spark plug does up firmly ..no problem

thanks man..I went ahead and replaced the spark plugs and haven't had the problem since :)