Oil Change

wstar

It's a very complicated topic

The oil manufacturers all have their own best interests at heart (how can I sell more of whatever I'm selling at a decent profit margin). The car manufacturers are primarily concerned with preventing warranty repairs (and thus primarily focused on making your engine last until the warranty expires and no further). The manufacturer also has to take environmental ******** concerns into what they recommend in the manual. You'll notice the Service Manual's recommendation for oil changes between North America and the rest of the world. It's because we have different emissions and fuel economy standards (which IMHO should be your very last concern when considering your oil). The dealership is pretty much in the same boat as the car mfg, and also trying to increase the cost of oil changes to you, while decreasing their own service costs.

There's probably a handful of guys who work in oil research labs and at Nissan who know *exactly* what the best oil formulation is for this engine for the best cooling and engine wear characteristics, but they don't get to say it publicly.

The only person on our side is us, and most of us don't really have the knowledge to make a completely scientific decision.

So go read bobistheoilguy, get even more confused, and do the best you can. For the first few thousand miles, conventional wisdom plus random smatterings of info about the VQ37VHR says the safest bet is to pay $12/qt for Nissan Ester 5W30. Odds are higher there are superior and cheaper solutions, but good luck getting a definitive answer that isn't full of (possibly mis-/under- informed) opinions (like mine ).

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