The Jester

Hello all,
I had my first oil change the other day @5000 miles in a private shop ('02 1.8T auto, 5 months old). I should mention first that my oil level hasn't visibly decreased since I got the car. But when the mechanic removed the plastic tray/cover (from the front underside), we could see that its right(passenger) side was kind of oily. He didn't initially pay too much attention to that until he later he pointed out to me he could see oil trickling from somewhere on the passenger side where the turbocharger is, and that in his opinion/experience it may point to a very small crack in the turbocharger and that I should definitely have it checked out by a dealer. I asked him how come I haven't seen ANY decrease in the oil level since I bought the car, and he said that the oil isn't really leaking, but just barely dripping in the minute quantity that the dipstick measuments may not show.
I don't know if this mechanic really knew what he was talking about, but he is a friend of a friend and supposedly works primarily with german cars,and obviously had no gain in lying or exaggerating possible problems. Add to this the fact that I know close to nothing about cars (I actually had to read an article in howstuffworks.com prior to posting this just to understand what a turbocharger is). Anyway this got me really scared, and I should probably just go to a dealer, even if it does turn out to be a false alarm. But with all the hassle involved in having your car serviced, I wanted to get some other people's opinions first.
Thank you.

April

Any time a car leaks fluids from someplace, get it checked out. Better safe than sorry.