Hey, everyone. Been lurking for a while, been looking for a FEH or a Mariner.

Test drive one today and saw something I haven't seen before. Like an idiot, I didn't get a picture. From a quick crawl under the car I saw this wax-like (not liquidy or wet. It was solidified) substance that was attached to the oil filter cap and it looked like some of it appeared by the drain plug as well. It was mostly yellow but had tinges of green in it as well. I'm not familiar with anything that this could be, so I'm hoping someone with more experience is.

Also, I've noticed a few Mariners and FEHs with seeping/leaking from that filter cap area. Is it safe to assume that that is from not changing the oil as often as one should and the o-rings failing or is there some common cause that I'm unaware of?

Thanks for responses in advance. Forums like these sometimes make me marvel at the wonder of the internet and the power of shared information.

 

My initial thought is oil sledge.

http://www.fordf150.net/photos/data/500/oil_cap_002.jpg

If an engine doesn't get hot enough, long enough to cook the water out of the oil, sledge can happen. Does it look like the image?

 

I had read about that but typically people talk about it near or under the filler cap, which is not where it was.
But it didn't look like that. When I say yellow and green, I mean classically Crayola yellow and green not yellowish or greenish. It made me think that it was some kind of oil stop leak or something. But I'm not familiar with anything that would be that color....

 

Oh, crap. I think I figured it out.... I was googling for a few hours and finally came up with the magic word combination... "bright yellow wax oil pan drain plug" without the quotes came up with other people who noticed similar things on their cars... And it's a tamper evident wax that repair places use to determine if people have been fooling with their work to avoid customers coming in and saying that the work they did was sub-par.

 

Oh, and this totally makes sense with where it was (on the drain plug and the place where the oil filter cap gets unscrewed). Wish I had known this yesterday... I'd have kept inspecting the car.