We love sorting engineering issues, its part of the fun of what we do so when we come up with something that just cant be explained we do love a challenge.

Mclaren 12c (same applies to 650s) has a dry sump oil system with a catch tank that just happens to be buried right up behind the firewall next to the chassis, its hard to even see let alone get to. So when we get a 12c in with an oil leak from that area we are loathe to tell the owner that to get to it means the engine has to come out – 18 hours of work.

Anyhoo to cut a long story short the engine has to come out for another reason so when we take a look at the tank this is what we see – a nice neat hole.

Now it really does look like somehas just hole punched it, or its been pulled in from inside like a reverse alien but there is nothing around the area at all, its completely enclosed. Stumped.

Position of tank in car

Then the replacement arrives, hmmm, there seems to be a nice little seam weld at the exact point the old one has a hole in it – that seems a little suspicious. We send a few images off to a few people to be given blank looks and ‘oooh, whats that then’ but nothing back, so we move one.

Now we hear of another one, similar miles (40k) so we are now even more curious – will keep you posted.