Should I be worried about cheap oil change?
 

I dropped off my car at the dealership for my first oil change yesterday and although it's somewhat my fault, I didn't quite specify what oil I wanted which was Nissan factory non synthetic ESTER oil. I just thought it was somewhat obvious and not to mention dishing out cash for quality oil.

Anyways, I went to go pick up my car and the oil change was merely $31. So I asked the service manager what oil they used and used a synthetic castro oil. I didn't mind too much at the time but now I'm getting quite concerned that they used cheap (maybe even recycled) oil since the dealership only charged me $2.71 per quart. Should I go ahead and switch it out with Royal Purple or Mobil 1 since the dealer forced me to synthetic?

That's too cheap to do the service, let alone the cost of synthetic oil, and a mandatory oil filter.

How many miles you have on your car?
$31.00=something is not right.

I forgot to ask, did you purchase the Maintenance+Plus program?

It was about $9 for labor, and the rest went towards oil + filter. As for maintenance plus, is that something you purchase as part of the warranty package?


@dad

About 1270 so far now.

Wait till 3500 or 5000 for synthetic. But if your really concerned about the oil they put in, drain it , put in a good name brand oil.

Why is the dealer changing oil so soon, at that low of mileage?

Dealers purchase their oil in 55 gallons drums. If it is a Nissan dealer I would be surprised if they used anything other than new oil on such a new car. Is this dealer known for shenanigans? I doubt they used synthetic, but ask them to show you their oil drums as they will clearly show what brand and weight they are. Do they have flyers or ads advertising they use Castrol oil?

I doubt, in my opinion, that they used synthetic oil on your car, but who knows what are their prices and service plans in your local Nissan dealer. Just to be used as a comparison, I have an 07 350z, Yet, I have 17.8K miles on it right now. Every time I go to my local Nissan Dealer to do oil and filter change I ask for synthetic and they charge me $63.
Probably, you asked for synthetic but they misunderstood you and put regular oil, my opinion.
Also, I think that it was to early to do your oil change. As dad said, try to wait 3K for regular or 5K miles if synthetic, or 3 month whichever comes first.
Check the color, level and/or viscosity of the oil before.

But if you want to make sure, some dealers also accept you to bring your own preferred brand quarts of oils and they only charge you for labor, and wont affect warranties. That's other thing that you can do, if you still want to deal with the dealer. :)

Good luck buddy.

dude.... c'mon.... you can't cheap out this type of maintenance !

Sorry guys, but there's no such thing as too early for an oil change. 3k? 5k? even 1k depend on how you drive or how deep is your pocket. 5k is kind of the nom nowaday, but if you can do it at 3k, even better.

Brought my own oil --- 1st oil change was $7 and some coin
 

I have driven near what is called out for in the manual up to this point ~730 miles. I checked the oil using a white paper towel and saw a bunch of stuff that didn't look like oil residue on the towel, so I took the car in to get the oil changed. I took my own oil in (Castrol 5-30w) and asked them to give me the filter before cleaning it up. Sure enough, some of the same stuff I saw on the paper towel was on the inside seal area so I asked the mechanic about it. Turns out to be "normal". I'm going to moniter how the oil looks but most likely will change it out again at 2-2500 miles or when I see the "normal" stuff again.

My dealer has a special price for the first oil change so my total cost was only $7 and change.......no complaints.

Was it "kinda white froth" looking?

Sure, buy your Z , take it home, change the oil right then. Let me know how you engine is when you get too 25 or 30k.

+1

I did my oil changes after every race day! And when I stopped racing, did them every 3000 miles on the dot.

I believe albertu, is refering to every day driving.

No froth
 

The oil was it's usual color but the other stuff was darker and looked like a finer version of dark grease. I should have took pictures, sorry for the bad description. I thought that it might have come off the stick so that's why I checked the filter at the dealership. If I see it again after a few hundred miles I'll shoot the pics and post them.

It is recommended that Nissan ESTER oil is used in your Z to reduce valvetrain noise in the VVEL setup in your Z.

I do all the work on my own car I can. Don't trust these a-holes. Check this vid:

Most Nissan dealers have a policy that your first oil change is 1/2 price. So are you sure that this isn't just simply what happened here in your situation?

Sorry, but for the INITIAL oil change, it can definitely harm an engine to change the oil too soon. After an engine has run in on its original oil, which under normal conditions takes more than 1K, THEN there's no such thing as too early (except for the money wasting thing). An engine needs a little time run on less-than-brand-new oil to get everything sealing right and working together smoothly. (Think of it as a final machining/honing operation.) If you don't give it time to do this, you'll see high oil consumption down the road.

[At the other extreme, although I would never come close to risking this in my vehicle -- scientific testing has shown that modern oils in normally-stressed engines (probably not your Z!) are fully capable of providing "new oil" performance beyond 15,000 to 20,000 miles, depending on engine load. I'm a 3K oil changer myself -- and probably always will be -- but I know I'm wasting a huge amount of money at that. My wife's car has an oil quality sensor that tells you when it's time to change the oil. Her second oil change came about 22,500 miles after the first! I've heard that a lot of Hondas using oil quality sensors go over 20,000 routinely between oil changes with no problems.]

I've heard that it is good to do your first oil change after 1000 miles. It gives the engine enough time to break in and it cleans out the fine metal shavings that may have been left behind from manufacturing.

I'm using bottom-of-the-barrel 10w30 in my car for the next 2000+ miles.. there's nothing to worry about here guys.. I've red lined it many, many times with this oil.. I do not expect anything to go awry by using "cheapo" dino oil. Do I plan to continue using the cheap oil? No.. this is what I used at my 1000 mile oil change to hold me over until Nissan changes mine under the Maintenance+ plan I added onto the Z during purchase. They state they will change my oil free of charge ever 3750 miles. And this had better be the Nissan OEM Ester oil..

Frost, that video scares the hell out of me.. What's to say our very own Nissan dealerships are doing the same thing - you just never know unfortunately.. I've taken previous cars to Jiffylube plenty of times and always wondered if they "really" changed the oil in the first place... It's so easy to "pretend" you're draining and replacing the oil.. I always had the feeling they were pulling fast ones on me to be honest..

I got my oil changed at 1200 Miles. I thought the same thing as everybody else. I drove like a grandma the entire time and it sucked. Then i thoght if i am gonna drive more aggressive i probably need to change out the oil thats in the engine becuase its probably got alot of "debri" in it.

So i too assumed the dealership was going to use nissan ester oil, i thought it was just someting that you have to do with a 370z. I read the forums here and some one said dealer did not put it in. So i checked my service receipt and it said "5.0 Formula Shell 10w-30". I instantly thought what the hell is this crap no way! If i was going to put a non nissan ester oil in my car, i would have put Royal Purple in it.

So i called my dealer, they at first attempted to argue with me saying Formula Shell is the "same" as nissan ester. BEcuase i told them no its not, they said ok we will do research and find out if it is or isnt the same and call you back. Told them fine they called me back and changed there tune they were no longer arguementive and said hey come in we will put ester oil in free of charge, and yes there seems to be a difference in the oils after doing research.

I went in, i argued with the man again trying to pay for it, he finaly broke down and let me pay for the oil and labor will be free. Ended up paying for the oil only at 60 dollars. I was happy, he was happy.

For over two years, I've been paying low ~$40 for a synthetic oil change (mobil 1 or motul) at west covina nissan in california.

It was awhile back, but I was watching them do the oil change once and instead of the big 55 gallon drum, they pulled out some 4qt bottles of motul.

I now have a different Z with the maintenance plus program and pay ~$20 for a synthetic oil change.