My wife has banned my car from our block-paved drive as it has a small oil leak. I tried to find where it was coming from and there is thin watery black oil around the rubber flap that joins the inner fender cover to the front spoiler on the right hand side of the car (drivers side on my RHD car). I guess the oil is engine oil but with all the plastic covers everywhere it's near impossible to know where it's coming from. Is it likely to be this on e31faq? http://www.e31faq.com/Default.aspx?catId=88

The procedure looks quite involved and i only want to tackle it if it's the most likely cause, any ideas?

Nick,
This is a long shot......does your car sit where it leans to the right? Have you checked the level of your power steering "Pentosin" fluid? The reason I ask is because the power steering system has a lot of hoses (I know it's on the shock tower of the left side of the car) and if one is leaking it would run down to the frame and across the front of the car, under the radiator frame, and then drip down on the right side of the car????? I know it's a 'reaching' but.....
Also, can you determine what the fluid is? Very inportant, as it could be 'dirty coolant' that looks like oil, which would be a hole different problem???
Hope this helps,
P. Ford

as P Ford said, it is likely that this is Pentosin from the steering pipes. The pump will start to make nasty noises if you let this run too low.

Do you have oil on top of the AC Compressor?

thanks for the ideas, i'm out of the country but i'll have a look when i get back on Friday.