Recently purchased an 09 550i with a few known issues. Great car I am really impressed with it overall but back to the issue. I have what appears to be oil leaking in the front of the engine but I have not pin pointed it. The oil ends up being all over the hoses for the active sway bar/ power steering. Also seems to be dripping below the fan housing oil cooler area. I had originally thought it was the oil cooler and the oil was being sprayed around by the cooling fan but now I am not sure. I pulled the fan off and did find some signs of oil around the oil cooler but did not pin point an obvious leak either. I also can be certain this is not power steering fluid maybe form the active sway bar but it looks more like oil although the active sway bar woudl make sense since it seems sort of random and hard to find the source which would point to a sort of on again off again leak.

Anyone ever had a similar experience?

 

We've all had oil leaks which could be coming from anywhere. The best thing to do is to clean the areas and add dye to your oil. Afterwards you should have a better understanding where it's coming from.

 

Yeah I was thinking about doing the dye check. I have always been able to locate the leaks but this one seems a bit odd.

 

Just to close out the thread my leak was the engine oil cooler part number 1 in diagram. Small leak that blew all over the bottom of the engine area due to the fan.

 

Glad you got it fixed and thanks for the update