Serious oil leak
 

Hi chaps, need some help. I have a bad oil leak coming from the head gasket area of my 2004 545i. It is coming from Under the exhaust manifold next to engine mounts passenger side (the rocker cover is dry). My local mechanic thinks it could be the head gasket leaking the oil. It's leaking very bad, around a drip a second and worse once driving (I stopped driving it as soon as I noticed it). No loss of power or anything strange, just losing a ton of oil. Has anyone had this issue before or can diagnose what is leaking? I have taken a couple of pictures but the leak is so far down its hard to get a shot of it. Any help would be appreciated, as your probably aware I'm not mechanically minded at all :-/

Take it to a shop that can diagnose and fix it?
It could be leaking from anywhere in that area. Technically, a leak is a loss of sealing qualities in one of the gaskets, or a crack in a metal. Unless you are experiencing severe running problems, I'd say its a gasket of sorts. V8s are prone to leaks from all places. Really bad gaskets everywhere on those N62s.

Upper timing cover gasket - chain tensioner - oil pressure sender - vacuum pump are all in that area and tend to leak - upper timing cover, sender, and tensioner are getting pressurized oil and more likely to be the culprits. Never seen a headgasket leak oil on a BMW N62....yet

Thanks for the replies, it was the alternator bracket which was leaking, a part which costs £2.93 from bmw which is the good news, the bad news is that it takes an age to fit due to the horrible location of it :-/

That one is a killer, your car must be right hand drive. Didn't even think to ask. The main one there would definitely be the alternator bracket. Explains why your mechanic didn't find it right away very hard to identify

Ouch, yeah I had that done thankfully under warranty as well as my upper timing gaskets at the same time. Parts were cheap on the invoice but the labor was something around 18-20+ total hours and racked up to nearly $3000.