Quote:
Originally Posted by Ron
No it shouldn't but its not on Nissan's chart and its not their recommended oil change interval. I personally don't go over 5000.
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Per Nissan, the "Severe duty" schedule is every 3,750 miles. "Normal duty" is every 7,500 miles. While I think it's generally agreed upon that the smart money is on 3,750 intervals, 5k is still well within the realm of what should be acceptable. Especially since the OP is running synthetic.
I don't disagree that had he changed it at 3,750 he might have been alerted that he was running low before it was too late. But that's why the car has a dipstick....
As Ron asked above, I'm curious as to when the OP last checked the oil level. To the OP, did you check it immediately after your last oil change to confirm that the level was correct? That is a critically important bit of info here.
If you check it like every few weeks and it was fine a week or two ago, then that would seem to point to some kind of catastrophic failure and not something you did. But as others have said, I can't imagine that wouldn't have manifested itself in the fore-mentioned oil slicks or clouds of smoke.
But if you haven't ever checked the oil level since you changed it X-months ago, then that opens up the possibility that the problem was some kind of slow leak or accidental negligence on your part.
I've got a buddy who has changed his own oil for years, and one time he just forgot to put the drain plug back in. Got distracted with a phone call or something in the middle of the change. Put in 5 quarts, then checked the disptick to find it dry. So he put in another quart a little bit at a time. Still dry. WTF. Then it dawned on him. He'd just poured 6 quarts of brand new oil straight through the engine into his to-be-recycled pan. Oops. Not saying you did this, but sometimes things happen. Had he not checked the oil to confirm the level after the change, he very likely could have driven off with it empty.