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Three months ago our garage changed the oil of our 2000 Nissan Primera. Time passes quickly and we have only just checked the oil level to find it was well above the "max". On draining the excess oil we found it had been overfilled by a litre and a half! An oil leak has also just started and we have been told that we may have to replace a seal. Is this likely to be a coincidence or can excess oil cause seals to become damaged.

If your vehicle is fitted with a high pressure fuel pump (direct injection engine) then there is the possibility that the fuel pump seal, located on cylinder head, is faulty. If this seal fails fuel leaks into the engine oil system which raises the oil level.

If the engine oil is significantly overfilled then it could cause an oil seal to fail; due to the excessive internal pressure in the engine. Hopefully you have taken the vehicle back to the garage who serviced your vehicle for them to see how much extra oil (if it was indeed overfilled) was in the engine and give them the opportunity to put it right.

Thanks for the answer. The car is a 2000 Nissan Primera Neo Di QG18DD CVT. As I understand the 'Di' stands for direct injection?

Yes, the DI stands for direct injection and the CVT (continuously variable transmission) doesn't have a good reputation for reliability on these vehicles either.