Hi all,
Looking at buying a 2000 TH Advance, but when I checked under the hood, there was what looked like clean oil sprayed around the alternator belt. There was oil dripping from the alternator, pulleys and the belt looked covered. There was also a small pool collected in the plastic crash plate directly under. The weird thing is, the timing cover cases were dry, and there was only the usual small weep marks around the head gasket, oil filter, etc.
So what should I look at as to what could be causing this?
I was told by the owner, it was a wd40 equivalent sprayed on to quieten some belt squeal on startup.
The car started fine, idled fine, revs fine, drives fine, with no vibrations, clicks, ticks, knocks, etc. So is the story plausible?
Any advise is appreciated.

spray WD40 on a belt? so much that it's dripping everywhere? instead of replacing or adjusting the belt? And he did it just before you arrived? I'm not sure that I would be keen to buy a car from someone with such a, how would I put this, careless? attitude to car maintenance. I makes me wonder what else he's hiding.

Commonly, belts will squeal when they haven't been used for a while. There are some spray on anti squeal chemicals and rub on stuff that looks like vaseline, that dealers/sellers can use rather than put on an expensive new belt. lol Shouldn't be all over the place though.

If it's clean oil then it won't be an engine oil leak which would look dirty. It's not unusual for someone to use WD40 or similar to quiten a belt temporarily, and if you are selling a car and suddenly you have a bad squeak caused by a dry/worn belt then why not spray with WD40. If you ever go to car auctions of repo's, you may find the detailers simply spray the engine compartment with WD40 - it makes the engine look shiny and all hoses, cables etc look like new.....and causes no harm.
So my opinion, FWIW is that the story is probably plausible, but as always caveat emptor...let the buyer beware.

It does sound plausible. WD40 recommends it for noisey belts. Unfortunately many people think that if a little is good, then more must be better.
I would take a rag next time I went to see the car. Check all the fluid levels. Make sure the engine oil and radiator coolant aren't leaking into each other. Then clean off all the WD40 and take take it for a good run, then when you return and it cools down, check it all again.