'catch can' ... oil drips, E93, N54

[Codes2]

I may totally embarrass myself here with this question...

I've read a couple times in passing something about a 'catch can' or similar.
I may recall the wording/term incorrectly - which may be why my searches didn't turn up anything obvious.

In reading several times about our valve cover leaking oil, and mine doing the same, I thought I'd look into this.
Is this a common enough problem that people actually put some sort of catch can or tray under a certain area so avoid driveway drips or drips on the manifold (or other hot areas)?

My car does leak, from there and from the oil filler sleeve area.
Usually I don't smell anything, but about once per day I get a waft of oil, strong, for a couple minutes and then it's gone again.

I'll look into changing the valve cover seals, but not in the immediate.

Thanks!

[jeff91121]

The leaking valve cover gasket and oil filter housing is a common problem. A catch can is not used to catch oil leaking from these areas though. You should think about fixing the leak at the oil filter housing as the oil can leak down and saturate your serpentine belt and cause it to slip and or fail. It is a fairly easy fix. The valve cover gasket is a much bigger job, not really technically difficult, just time consuming with some hard to reach bolts. Look for DIY's here, there are several that will be extremely helpful.

[White94RX]

A catch can is a device that goes inline with the crankcase ventilation system. It is designed to catch the oil vapors that are in the system to prevent the oil from getting back into the intake tract. The idea is that the inside of the pipes stay cleaner, and help reduce the carbon deposits on the back of the intake valves. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's the gist of it.