i have a serious oil leak on my bug and not sure where to start. My mechanic changed the brakes and seemed to think it was the oil plug. He doesn't like to work on volkswagen so that's as far as he looked into the problem. He also tightened up the oil filter which was leaking oil. I am thinking the guys that changed the oil did not know what they were doing with this car. My wife is the member of this forum and not me. She loves this car but it stresses me out (since i have five grand in this thing). Anyway, I am also having a tough time knowing if it needs coolant since i cant even figure out how to check the coolant level. Also, when adding oil i noticed some brown sludge the caked on the oil cap. Is this normal??? I bought this car for 4500 and i have repaired the water pump,some seals, the thermostat, the timing chain, brakes for about 1400 bucks and it only has 76k on it. I dont think i can afford to maintain this vehicle at this rate. So what it boils down to is...What is the brown sludgy material? Is it normal? How do you check the coolant level? What should I do as regular maintenance on this vehicle? (1998 vw bug with standard 4 banger engine in it -non turbo non diesel) Should i just try replacing/tightening the plug for the leak or what?