A lot of you guys are new to the VQ engines so I'll just say this and let you arrive at your own conclusions.

The reason Nissan people are pushing use of conventional ester oils is bc a lot of their research from the 350Z has led them to believe that early use of synthetic oils are directly responsible for all the oil burning issues they have seen with the VQ. And trust me there are a lot. Anyone that has owned a 350 knows this. Personally, I have owned 2 350's and a G35 coupe. Never once did I use synthetic oils on my N/A Z's. Once turbo'd I immediately made the switch but I also had about 15k on the odo at the time...so I'm sure the piston rings were seated by then. Most good mechanics recommend switching to synthetics around 20k miles for this exact reason.

The VQ is a strange engine so take what you want from this post. There are plenty of threads on "my350Z" to prove this.... specifically of people using royal purple.

The dealer may not be completey bs'ing you on this one. Remember they are in it for the money also so they'd most probably prefer you to get synthetic. Just food for thought.

It sounds as if the guy was trying to honest by saying Nissan engineered the engine that way. It sounds ridiculous but that's probably what Nissan told him to say, so you can't fault him. I have a habit of running conventional oils in my vehicles unless I have some source of FI. People have been using dino oils for a long time now and they are better than ever so I see no reason to change....yet.

Well if mine ends up burning oil from it, then so be it - to be honest, I'm skeptical that it will due to the use of synthetic oil, or that it (the use of synthetic) could be proven as the culprit of burning oil.

Many vehicles come with synthetic from the factory. Nissan won't say either way if their factory fill is which or if it's even a blend, so with all honesty, how are we supposed to know if using synthetic is "bad" for the engine? Plus, there's a lot of debating information all over the place (internet) regarding when to switch to synthetic, etc.

I'll use what I use (Mobil1) until something comes up that convinces me otherwise.

^^

Nissan's factory fill is the Nissan Ester 5w30 which is a conventional oil base with Ester.

Ester's are typically found in some of the more expensive Group V synthetics but when combined with the conventional oil base, some people call them "blends" which isn't a bad interpretation. It is however, different from the synthetic blends found on the market which don't have Esters.

To touch on the original post, the 370Z can definitely run a synthetic but there is always debate as to when to make the switch. Most people recommend somewhere between 3 - 10K. I'll probably make the switch myself at 7,500 miles. I may be able to do it earlier with no harm to break-in but its not really worth the risk in my opinion. Running the car for the first couple thousand miles on the Nissan Ester "blend" won't hurt it.

Also, many cite that a lot of cars (for ex. the GTR, Corvette, MB cars) come with a synthetic factory fill and therefore come to the conclusion that synthetics are preferred for brand new engines. Keep in mind, that the oil manufacturers negotiated these factory fill contracts with the auto companies. While synthetic in a new engine probably isn't as bad as some claim, this doesn't mean its the best or ideal oil for the first 3-10K. Remember that most drivers don't want to go through all the research and trouble that we do here on oils and break-in so if the manufacturer recommends a synthetic for the long-term use of the car and wants to keep the instructions simple, I can't argue with them for putting it in there from day one.

:iagree:

Very well stated, David. I ran on Nissan's Ester oil for the first 5500 miles before switching to synthetic, precisely because I want to err on the side of caution when it comes to break-in.

crap... break in is at 5500? i thought it was 3200........ o man.......

I didn't mean to imply that there's anything special about the 5500 miles mark. It's just where I made the switch. I did my first oil change at 1800 miles, putting Nissan's Ester oil back in. At 5500 miles I just figured it was close enough to 3000 miles since my last oil change, plus it was a nice even number and it was also a good time to put my oil cooler on. So that's when I switched over to synthetic. Like David said, most people recommend making the switch somewhere between 3-10k. I've always considered waiting until after the first 5k miles to be a good rule of thumb, just to be on the safe side. But it's just a personal thing. It's not like I have some scientific study pointing to 5k as the magic threshold or anything like that.

Tons of BS in this thread, that's for sure! There is absolutely NO WAY an engine would be run up to redline on the test bench. And the only manufacturer that puts an engine on a dyno at the factory is Porsche. All oil is drained from the engine on the test bench at the factory, after the initial test run. In the case of Nissan for the VQ, it is then refilled with Nissan Ester Oil. Why? Because this engine runs hot, period.

Here's a nice link, read it and stop the madness!

Stealth 316 - Engine Break-In :tiphat:

good info man ^^^^

I changed mine out at 1200 from whatever the factory put in to Mobil1 and the larger version of the OEM oil filter (it's slightly longer, same diameter) - I'll change it out again in spring, when I do all my vehicles annually.

I'll put in the regular Mobil1 oil again for next year, and change it out in the fall or when I hit around 3K more than whatever it is in spring, then after that I'll probably move to the 7500mile-rated Mobil1 oil and change it annually.

My Civic, I think, came with Mobil1 factory-filled. I changed it out at 5K a couple times, then moved to Mobil1 15K oil. Next interval is at 75K. I'll probably be a bit late, and just change it in March, since it's at 70K now. I checked the oil, and it's fine. Engine holds 3 quarts...so if it's a quart low - that's really bad!

I think the article as written (and others that recommend break-in by varying engine speed) are taking into account the pressures being applied to the rings, pistons, cylinder walls and valves.

Cars typically "burn" oil due to bad valve seals - ie, oil drops down into the combusion chamber (or out the exhaust). If you have bad rings, you don't burn oil, you lose compression. There's no a whole lot you can do at break in to prevent your rings from failing and/or wearing out. It's part of the lifecycle of the engine. Same in a sense with valve stem seals - eventually they can wear out.

Whether you vary your engine speed or not during break-in makes zero difference to the part. It has a limited number of cycles it can sustain before degradation, provided there is adequate lubrication.


One other thing, redline is a number. Case and point - same engine, same internals, and the Nizmo has a higher redline. "staying away from redline" is a load of BS. It makes no real difference to the engine how fast you run it, the same parts are moving, just faster. Sure there are physical loads that are different, however, those loads are "within spec" - it's like saying that a part won't surive because you hit redline, or that you will drastically reduce the longevity of your engine because you bounced the needle when the car only had 200 miles on it...

My uncle used to drag race one of his old cars and would wind the engine up to 12K - this car was bone stock, I think it was a mustang, but I'd have to check. He did that until he blew the flywheel out of it, which was a significant number of races later.

I doubt very seriously that your uncle was winding his mustang engine to 12k!Never happen in the real world!

I'll check w/ my Dad on the story on which car it was, the year, the engine size and whatever else he can remember.

My dad, I think, at the time had a 68 or 69 396 Camaro, and I think my uncle's engine was under 300ci...283 sounds right, but that's a Chevy engine...like I said, I'll have to check.

Expanding the horizon of possibilities/probabilities: My wife had a girlfriend who, back in the '70s used to own a Plymouth Cricket (I believe that was a rebadged Mitsubishi vehicle). Well, she once came to visit with us and, talking about how really good her Cricket had turned out, I made a comment about the importance of oil changes according to the schedule in the Owner's Manual...The look on her face told a story! She told me that, in the 3 or 4 YEARS she had owned that car, she had NEVER done "such thing"! I warned her about how crucial the procedure is, and she commented that, since she was divorced, she wasn't "gonna worry about it". As far as I know, for as long as my wife and her were friends, she never complained that the car ever failed her in any way! On the other hand, I've heard of dudes who do oil changes every 3,000k or even 1,500k!, and their cars turn out lemmons. The truth of the matter is that every car is different, and one never knows how it's gonna turn out to be. According to reliability stats', Toyota, Honda, Subaru and Nissan are the most reliable makes, so I've been buying Nissan for years (6 cars, so far), and doing oil changes every 7,500k with Mobil 1 5W30 or 10W30, with no bad results at all. I'm sticking with that plan till it proves to be wrong!

I read on another forum somewhere that someone had a truck with something like 120K miles on it, never once changed the oil.

Doesn't mean it's true or not, but, there are people out there that probably have done just that - absolutely no maintenance short of putting on cheap tires when the ones they have wear out, and putting gas in the tank.

As for reliability, when it comes time to send the Civic out to pasture, I'm thinking I'll look at Nissan pretty hard...the Altima is not a bad looking car...

I had a friend with a Jag XK120 who did this...Owned it for 14 years and never changed the oil. Since it had a big sump and leaked/burned at a pretty good rate it really didn't matter.. He always had a relatively fresh batch of oil in there.....:icon17:

In 1978 when synthetic oils first made an appearance, I put 4 quarts in my Fiat X1/9.
Next morning I went outside and all 4 quarts had leaked out through the gaskets. That was one of the problems when synthetics first came out, some cars couldn't handle it.

I change my oil every 7500k as well on my Acura and BMW. Never had any issues. However that is not something I'd be willing to risk on the VQ engine as it naturally likes to burn oil...at least in my experience. I did the change every 5k and lost anywhere from half to 1 quart every time.

^^^ thats insane...... if that happened to me i would be like.... wtf :eek2:

I think i think you mean physimabullshics

A note on honing: Engine bolcks are bored with indexable carbide boring tools. the finish is WAYYY smoother from this tool than the hones(a proper OEM machining center can achieve a 16 microinch finish on the bore) problem is it isn't perfectly round so manufacturers bust out the hone and get the bores to within .003-.005 of finish size. Now here's the important part after the rough hone they use a finish hone to smooth out the rough hones surface and clean up the walls of cylinders(you have to look through a stereoscope at hundreds of metal samples before you fully understand what i mean when i say that two parts can have identical surface roughness but be totally different). The goal of honing is to create the roughest finish possible while allowing the rings to move freely and seal effectively for the purpose of OIL RETENTION. You have an aluminum block and steel rings chief the rings "seat" in the cylinder walls kinda like breaking the tips off of all of the teeth on your file. the shavings in the oil are all alluminum. Magnetic drain plugs on our cars don't really do much because of this(they do pick up some stuff from the bearing to journal wear, oil pump gears, and the timing set though).

Oems that do use the factory fill of synthetic often use phosphorous and zinc loaded additives in that first batch of oil as well to ease break in. They tell you not to use it afterwards because it tends to have an effect on emissions over time. oil used to be loaded with it in order to lubricate the old flat tappet cams but that too has been cleaned up now to the point where if you own an old 60's era musclecar you should be running special oils or additives as they have been cleaned out of almost all oils on the market.

My '04.5 Touring Coupe's turned out to be one solid workhorse! No oil-consumption or high temp' issues, no feathering, no starting issues, no overheating issues. The only prob' has been with the doggone power window motors; I already installed a new one on the driver's side, and the passenger's side is already acting up! Then again, those are what I call "non-serious bugs", 'cause they won't leave you stranded at midnight on a rainy night. All in all, my 350Z's for keeps, until the Lord says differently! I'm staying with the 7,500k oil-change schedule; if it ain't broke, don't fix it! Greetings, dudes!

This is not the real world. This is FantasyLand.

+1 rep:tiphat:

I just want to point out that I worked at a Toyota Manufacturing plant and as soon as the car is assembled, they do put it on a test bench and drive the car under load. They rev it up to something like 50-75% of redline a few times. And then they actually put it in reverse and rev it up under load as well. I dont know for sure but Id say probably 3500-4000, could be different depending on the car of course.

That's for sure, including This response.

Many manufacturers have a chassis dyno at the end of the assembly line where the car is run up through the gears and RPM's under load. It's part of the Quality Control procedure.
ALL Motorcycle assembly plants do for sure.

As far as a factory fill with Esther oil, no one has EVER confirmed this...Lotta gum flapping, no evidence..If you have some post it up!

LMAO. First car I owned was a 1953 Chevy that I bought in 1962. It burned/leaked oil at a prodigious rate but at 18 I didn't give a rat's *** - I had a car. It had some sort of scoop/pick-up oiling system for the babbitt bearings on the main shaft. I always knew when it needed oil because I could hear those bearings howl when I made a sharp turn (scoop wouldn't pick up enough oil when it sloshed to the side of sump in the turn). Never bothered to change the oil - just added some when the "audio" alarm sounded.

LOL...You got that right. Speaking of 12k rpm.... back in the '80s when I was running a Pro Stock motorcycle (Kawasaki), we would always break in fresh cylinders/rings with one pass on regular oil and then drain it and put in the Mobil 1. Rings wouldn't seat on the synthetic. Just wouldn't do it...period. That was when I was convinced that the synthetic stuff was the real deal. Of coarse that was a long time ago and alot has changed since then. Except Mustangs still won't turn 12,000 rpm...:rolleyes:

So what's the final word to the first posting....is it OK or ISN'T IT OK to put synthetic in these cars......Geezzzuss - Just a simple YES or NO will do!!!!!!!

Maybe.

i switched over to royal purple 1 at approx 1500 miles. later than i normally do on the past 4 new cars ive had. this is the only one that burns oil out of all of them. as long as im not loosing performance from the burning oil, i check it often enough not to care much.

Yes.

The only cars in which synthetics are not recommended are rotary engines or some very old engines. The debate on synthetics otherwise revolves around the following:

1. When to switch and if it affects break-in. See previous posts
2. Whether or not synthetics provide much more protection than conventional and over what change interval.

So the issue is not whether it can or can't. Just if its worthwhile. ZKindaGuy, I think your service manager just didn't take the time to elaborate in his recommendation to you when he stated that the Z can't use synthetics. There is nothing in the design of the Z's engine which would preclude the use of synthetics. There are however factors which indicate it could help including:

1. Higher than average oil temps. Synthetics shear less and hold better in hot and cold.
2. High RPM engine combined with the fact that Z owners typically drive hard.
3. the VVEL system uses oil pressure. Using synthetics results in more stable viscosities and thus more consistent oil pressure as compared to conventional all else equal.

Its up to you- but again the Ester oil they recommend while not a "full synthetic" due to its conventional base oil does have more esters (an additive found in synthetics) than most synthetics on the market (except for Redline, Motul, etc.)

YES, it is O.K.--no, it's GREAT!--to use synthetic oil in our beaZts!!! End of story.

That's far different than running it up to redline, ya think? Why the reverse? Does that make a difference on the engine?

This is not about break-in.....It's about quality control. Making sure everything works before shipping

It's ester, not Esther. :tiphat: Modshack, I never said they don't run the engine at the factory. I said that only Porsche runs the engine on a dyno before it is even installed in the chassis. What manufacturer would build an engine and not test it? I also said that there is no way an engine would be run up to redline.

So you are saying that Nissan recommends it's Ester Oil but does not use it? Seriously? Talk about gum-flapping! Do you know anything about the VVEL tapping issue? Nissan started using Ester oil in the VQ engine in the G37 (they also re-calibrated the ecu) because of it. The TSB is ITB08-028a. Wasn't hard to locate on the internet.

We could go on for weeks about this. The only reference to factory fill in the manual is on page 9-5 and says this..

"Your engine was filled with a high quality engine
oil when it was built."

That's not real definitive....

So, again, Nissan highly recommends (can't require, by law) the oil but does not use it themselves for the factory fill, which will be used during the most crucial period (break-in) and which would help limit the number of warranty issues with the engine? Really? Man, that is one dumb company.

The TSB, by the way, states that Nissan Ester oil is required when reflashing the ECU under the TSB procedure for the 3.7 VHR. Isn't the ECU reflash at this point done at the factory?

EDIT: Nissan Technical Service Bulletin ITB08-028a
EDIT: The Owner's Manual was written long before ITB08-028a

:wtf2:

Like I said, if you have proof, post it up! I'm sure others would be interested..

Personally I don't care. I ditched my factory fill at 1600 miles when I installed my oil cooler. Pennsoil Dino since then with no differences noted at all. I'll be moving to full synthetic at 5K...

is the dueling over?

:icon17:...I doubt it...You know all about the "assume" thing....:tup: