KillerBee's been runnin on 2.5.... wtf?
 

So I changed my oil today. It's been about 5k miles since the last give or take. Just turned 19k miles and nothing out of the ordinary drive/noise wise.

So I usually drain the oil into the pan and then funnel the used oil back into the empty oil quart containers and box 'em up as it's just easier to take them back to the auto parts store that way as opposed to taking the large container. Well when I was refilling the quart containers with the used oil I filled only 3 of them!! And the kicker is that I flushed a half a quart of fresh oil through so in reality what I had in the engine was only 2.5!!!!

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!?

Minimal metal shavings on my magnetic oil drain plug.. nothing out of the normal. I have a magnet on the oil filter so no way of telling how much metal is in there but my guess is nothing out of the ordinary. No leaks in driveway and once I got the skid plate off, everything was dry underneath on the oil pan etc. Oil came out dark but normal for 5k worth of my nutty driving.

I dunno...


Here's the used oil.. the upside down quarts are emptys and the other 3 are full. (I put 5 quarts in the car)

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6084/...c4c20361_b.jpg

:ugh2:

I would take it to the dealer immediately for an oil consumption test. Also, record your level and check it at each fill up.

You do loose some oil between oil changes. I would of guessed about 4 qts left over plus whats trapped in the oil filter. I'm going to change mine this weekend and I'll see what I have left for used oil.

Come out to Angeles Crest on the 27th for a cruise

I don't think the dealer is going to give me any leeway in terms of replacing anything (especially an engine) if something isn't right given all my mods.

But I suppose it would give me a baseline analysis to go on.

Yeah I was guessing about the same. I emptied the filter into the container as well. I mean maybe between what was coating the engine, filter and container I MAYBE had another 8th of a quart. :icon14:

Hope everything's ok KillerBee!

Damn, Buddahson, what a cool sig you have :tup:

Oh this is not very good, keep a regular eye on it and if you notice it's burning through more than normal it's probably a sign that you have oil consumption issues.

I know of 4 different people that had these exact issues with their 350z's and their engines were replaced for oil consumption.

Dude, that sucks. This is one of the reasons why I usually check my oil every month (or 1500 miles) worth of use. If something is awfully low, then I would try to figure out if it is an oil consumption use.

In the mean time, my car (2010 40th anniversary) is on 3400 and went through auto-x. No oil consumption in a comparison before and after the event, so I'm good with mines.

replaced for oil consumption? Is that ok??

Interesting.

Definately a heads up for me. I just turned 1300 miles, but haven't noticed any consumption so far. I usually only check the level once a month or so, but I'm going to try and check more often. It's a change of routine for me because none of my other cars have ever consumed oil.

Shouldn't Oil that low trip the low oil sensor?

should really check your oil levels especially while the car is new.

mine has stopped burning oil now (6K miles). :)

There have been reports here in the past of engines going dry before they shut down and failed (one belonged to a dealer IIRC). I don't think we have a low oil level sensor, just a low oil pressure sensor, and by the time that goes off from oil loss you've already been running *way* too low.

My 2009's at 21.5K miles now, and I've never had any significant oil consumption issues after the first oil change or two. The level on the dipstick sometimes goes down maybe 1/8 of an inch at most over the course of an oil change, but it's hard to tell.

I've often wondered what the real cause is for the oil consumption issue they had the TSB about. Cylinder wall issues where they don't break in and seat rings properly or something? In any case, if it was the TSB issue I would've thought you'd have seen it earlier than this.

Is it at all possible you just goofed on filling the crankcase last time you changed oil? That or maybe a bad seal on the oil drain plug would be the two best outcomes, since neither would need a real fix. No oil residue on the inside of the undertray?

.5-1 quart every 3750 here

Yikes, how many miles is your car? I haven't burned oil from beginning to first oil change at 3400 miles.

I have 12K miles. I think nIssan's tolerance is 1 quart every 1500 miles or so, I don't really think it is that bad given I have done about 400 autox runs and 1200 track miles on the car. This is the least of my concern, I have bigger problems that I am dealing with with the car.

had you checked the dipstick semi recently and it was all good?

It is a known issue for all versions of the "Rev-up" motors. All of my friends who were deemed as consuming excessive oil had their engine replaced by Nissan.

No it had been awhile. The last I checked it though it was maybe a half a quart low.

Nothing to indicate any leaks whatsoever. Undertray clean. Oil plug dry. No leaks in the oil cooler connections.

Hey Michael, I just changed my oil, and I dropped about 7 qts in the drain pan. I have yet to top off between oil changes. I just hit 15k

It takes about 2 min to check oil level. Once I week I check the fluids and tire pressure unless I haven't been driving the car. 10 minutes of my time each week is well worth it.

Once the car has more miles (perhaps 10k miles) I'll check it less often. Need to establish a baseline first and I've always done this with new vehicles.

I do burn a little in the Z but nothing extreme yet. I have about 2,700 miles now.

I used to check it religiously but thought I had established a pretty good base line after 10k. I guess I will go back to checking it once a week for now and maybe get the consumption test done.

I would switch to redline or Nissan oil. My previous car burned oil when I used mobile 1.

I would post up a pick of that owl going "ORLY" but I'm on my iPhone right now :D

Maybe I will switch to redline or amsoil

sounds like you got something going on there. if i read the post right you were down 2 1/2 quarts between change's.

goes to show everyone should check oil at every fill up.

At 4500 miles on my replacement short block, I still use oil at the rate of approx 1 qt/1000 miles. Half the rate before replacement. I hope to get to your slower burn rate of 1qt/2000 miles soon.

Good luck and I hope The Bee is uninjured.

Wow I had no idea so many of our engines had "normal" oil consumption in this sort of range (1qt per 1 - 1.5K it sounds like?). I change my oil pretty religiously at 3K miles or 3 months, and I'm still using 5W30 Motul 300V (which, while expensive and an excellent lubricator, as noted elsewhere isn't designed for long change intervals at all, and is low on detergents). Another reason I change more frequently is I have an oil cooler which I'm not draining on change, so every change leaves behind a considerable amount of used oil mixed in as well. I've never even seen a whole quart lost per 3K change, generally the loss is small enough that I hardly notice (under half a quart).

I'm going on 2500 miles and haven't burned a drop... That being said I broke the engine in per the owner's manual and typically drive like I'm retired. My first oil change I will be switching to Amsoil.

That's true, behavior can be a big factor. I broke mine in a little rougher than the owner's manual asked for (since I had read about the whole "seat the compression rings" thing). I run my engine pretty hard, although not as hard as someone who keeps a regular race schedule. But I'm also very adamant about letting my oil warm up before driving. I almost always let it idle up until the oil temp needle is at least moving (140+), and I usually won't go rough on the revs or rpms until 180. In the 2.5 years or so I've owned the car, maybe 5 times total I've been in enough of a rush to hurry that process in order to get somewhere I needed to be on time.

So my car just burned all 5.5 quarts of oil, I use Mobil 1 as well. The engine is knocking and it was bone dry on oil. Had it towed to Nissan and hopefully getting all of it fixed under warranty.

:eek:

dude over what period of time?!! You gotta check it every now and again!

Maybe 3-4 months, just under 5000 miles. It's just absurd that it can burn through that much oil.

There must be a leak, or there was a bad oil change, or something's really wrong. An engine shouldn't come up dry in that many miles/months.

No leaks and no bad oil changes. Check out this thread.

http://www.the370z.com/nissan-370z-w...se-engine.html

It shouldn't, but it does.

My engine right now is eating a bit over a quart of oil every thousand miles. Found that out after 3k miles when I started getting valvetrain noise and the oil temp didn't want to budge from the bottom of the gauge.

Ended up having about 1.5 quarts left. Pretty sweet.

Got under the car- no leaks. Definitely eating oil. My '06 350 did the same thing.

Well, whatever, to the dealership she goes.

Well, according to the info in This post, Nissan's standard for excessive consumption anything beyond somewhere in the vicinity of a quart per 5,000 miles. I'm not sure if that chart is accurate (I haven't gone and measured mine, but 30mm from high to low sounds too long for what I see on the dipstick? Then again I'm horrible at small-scale metric estimations).

In any case, a quart per 1,000 is definitely excessive consumption. There's been a TSB on this for ages, and Nissan replaces the short block after documenting the excessive consumption. It's definitely not "normal". Normal is being about a quart low (or less) after regular street driving for say a 5K-ish interval.

Exactly, and even if my car has gone 7000 miles on this oil change, it still shouldn't have burned through 5 quarts. I use 7000 miles because it's semi-possible that my oil change mileage math is off and also I used Mobil 1 Synthetic 7000 miles Extended Mileage oil.

They will replace the shortblock under warranty. This is a known problem with the VQ37HR, and they shouldn't give you any BS.

It should have nothing to do with the brand of oil.

Miraculously, I either lucked out or did well with my break-in -- zero oil consumption for me. Over 31K on the odometer.

I check the level about every 2-4 weeks.