Driving to work today and found gear oil puddling under the car when I got there. Sniff.
So far the car has been very reliable, but this is the first thing to go wrong. Gear oil covers the whole underside of the transmission, and it looks like the CV axle is covered completely and flung gear oil everywhere! It's on the tires, the strut, the brakes... everywhere.
Now I have to find out where it is coming from, seeing as I nailed an animal on the way to work today doing about 80mph. No damage other than the leak. It looks like the leak is coming from the transmission seal on the driver's side. It makes sense then, that gear oil would travel to the CV axle, then get flung everywhere. If it were a case crack or something it would probably not get on the CV axle.
I cleaned up the transmission casing and voila, there looks to be no damage. I lowered the car down to get the trans seal as low as possible to see if I can tell if it is leaking, but the transmission may be completely out of oil after 20 miles of driving.
I'm voting towards the axle seal. But now I have to wait until Monday to fix it because the dealer is closed until then, and no one has the seal.
But on the drive home, letting the clutch out didn't cause the idle to drop. Gear shifts to 2nd were perfectly smooth, even without warming up the transmission. Transmission seemed to drive better than when it had fluid in it lol. The only difference is getting into 1st was a bit notchy. Good thing that gear oil was put in after the heavy shockproof. It's still pink