I hope so. I'm going to con either Tilley or Paul (Requin) to give me a hand on my rebuild this spring. We'll see who I can get to give me a hand.

 

'02 w/87k km (50k mi) I've been using Mobil 1 5W30 w/Nissan filters since new. My car has always used a bit of oil, about 1 L every 5 km. In the last few months, it has not used a drop and I have no explanation. I do get the 1500-1800 rpm rattle when the ambient temperature is warmer (15C+), but in the winter it is not apparent.

 

I have an 02 Altima, single turbo VQ35DE and I haven't had any problems with the engine. I only have about 25,000.

 

Holy Cow! and I thought my consumption was bad....

 

im hoping he meant 5,000 km!!!!

 

well, I guess 1 quart every 3,100 miles isn't too bad.

 

actually, its one liter per 3100 miles. and yes, thats about normal to me.

 

One liter is approximatly one quart. So close that you'd never know the difference.

 

1 qt every 3k miles is not normal in a bigger picture. i dont think there are many new cars that come from japan that eat that much oil. maybe a few ounces every oil change is ok, but 1 qt every 3k miles is too much.

 

off topic:
if ssr can make a turbo for the 3.5 alti, why isn't there a good one for our 5.5 gen motors?

 

I have a 02 SE with 103k on it. I have had pinging for about the last 1500 miles, typically around 1500-2200 RPM or downshifting going uphill.

This morning, went to crank it and it started, then heard a loud "tap tap tap tap tap" noise coming from top end of engine. Plenty of oil in it and no SES lights. Taking it to carmax (crap) since it is still under warranty. Will see what they find out.

 

We're not talking about VWs here, we're talking Nissans. No VQ should be consuming half as much oil as that. If you're losing that much oil, there is a serious problem.

 

Says who?!

"Look at me, I'm Mr. Customer and i say thats too much oil, and I'm right because im Mr. Customer"

until nissan or another expert on the matter can give a spec for oil loss on a VQ35, no one can really say. obviously burning an amount that will affect engine operation in the distance traveled between normal oil change intervals is excessive. for the most part, 1 qt low doesnt seem to be doing that.


ya, in anything other than a graduated cylinder. like i said, normal to me

 

How about 2 qts every thousand miles? Is that excessive? Just curious because nobody seems to believe that some of us have excessive oil loss. Keep in mind that I have WAY more miles than the rest of you. I'm not saying everyone will see what I'm seeing, but I'll bet that this topic doesn't die. Can't wait to get to tear down the engine and see if it's the rings, valves, valve seals, or head gasket.

 

id say so, that'd put you at 6 qts in an oil change, which would deplete all of the engine oil way before interval, affecting the operation of the engine. yes, its excessive. is it an internal issue, or something else causing the problem?

how much is WAY more miles? what mods do you have? just whats in your sig?

you dont have to teardown the engine to locate the source of an oil consumption.

 

I just rolled over 136k in my '03. It's an internal issue: I can see the smoke rolling out the back any time I hit 4k RPM's. No leaks anywhere. I'm tearing down the engine to do a little more than just fix it. I won't go into details yet, but it should be fun when I'm done. Only real engine type mods are the intake, cat and timing advance if you want to call those engine mods. I sincerly hope the problem is in the valves and not the cylinders.

...I wonder if it doesn't have something to do with the secondary intake opening? Never really thought of that. Anyone know if that's possible? I haven't opened mine up yet to dig into it.

 

gbauer: sounds like you are the pioneer in resolving this issue. let us know if you find what's going on. i think a lot of people here are going to own their maximas when they hit 100k miles, and that seems to be when the oil burning starts. if it's the failing pre-cats, that's probably affecting our engines in much lower milage than 100k. i would definetely do some preventative maintanance on my car and fix whatever is wrong at 45k, than wait till 100k and deal with more issues that resulted from oil burning.

 

Unless Mr. Customer is also an Engineer and knows better?

Nissan isn't likely to give a "spec" on oil loss. They're probably just as likely to give a spec on permitted power steering pump leakage or knock sensor failure. These things are problems, not properties that we should "live with". Healthy engines do not burn significant amount of oil. Burning oil can indicate other problems or problems that may be soon to arise, like a loss of compression (and therefore performance) or excessive valve train wear (and eventual mechanical failure).

If the precursor VQ30DE had ever seen oil consumption like this, than it might be expected. However, the precedent set by the VQ30DE is one of incredible smoothness, reliability and longevity. As I've mentioned before, I've actually measured the oil going into and out of my '96 and after more than 200,000 miles it only loses a few ounces over the course of 3,000 miles. Some of these guys are talking about using eight to sixteen times that much over a third the miles in a car that's half as old. That's not right.

Of course, I'm talking about stock or nearly stock normally aspirated motors here. An intake or exhaust shouldn't make a difference, but forced induction is a whole different story and can increase the likleyhood of several engine problems.

 

I have a 2002 with 60k on it
i use castrol synthetic blend
and it works great
not burning oil and level is always good

 

I have built alot of 3.5s and none seem too have any major oil consumption. Thats weird.

 

"built" might have something to do with it?

 

If Mr. Customer is an engineer for Nissan then, yes. If Nissan is gonna be paying for the repair, then theyll decide what normal and whats not. They designed the engine. its their baby.

why not, other MFGs do?

All IC engines burn oil. this is normal, you said it youself. a failed knock sensor isnt normal and neither is a p/s leak. and of course there isnt a *spec* for knock sensor failure. either its good or its not. that'd be like having a spec for a failed o2 sensor. and the 'spec' for a p/s leak is anything beyond a seep, in other words anything leaking sufficiently to drip, or begin to drip.



and the engine in the 996 turbo isnt healthy because why? Many a 996 owner is in the dealer between intervals for a top-up. though i suppose its more common because the DME checks the oil level and displays it in the cluster.


can, yes... it can also be normal.

and the VQ35 follows suit. The only VQ35s ive seen fail were due to miuse/overuse of nitrous. im sure there are a few overheating cases, and there are the few with excessive oil consumption that weve heard of. but no catastrophic failures under normal usage. smoothness, reliability and longevity, along with a nicer powerband.


why, because you said so? youre not really giving an exact measurement, but most everyone will agree that 1qt per 1000 miles is pushing it. the majority of us are losing less than 1qt over 3K. :iwishwehadaSHRUGsmilie:

intake shouldnt make a difference? what if the vent pipe enters the inlet pipe at an incorrect angle, restricting case vapor flow, causing a saturated crankcase. what if a weld with a 1mm protrusion creates a small venturi and oil mist is brought into the engine VIA the intake tube.


yes, id DEFINATELY call an intake a mod. theres no question about it.

 

ya, as soon as i read this post, thats what i thought. the pressure waves obviously change at the switchover point, im wondering if your problem isnt just a leaking i/m gasket or something of the sort. im not sure if the lower carries oil or not, however.

its good that youve made a project out of a small mishap. its a bit inspiring, and im sure youll have PLENTY of help from us, as well as your locals. im eager to see what you can put out.

 

Looks like someone voted in this thing reviving it so... that being said: Tilley: HELP!!! If you're perusing this and happen to read it, I'm leaning towards a valve job in a month or two depending on the cash flow. I'd like to do it in a weekend and my wife happens to have a couple of friends where you live (she went to school at LVC). Any chance we can do it at your shop? I'm pretty good on an engine and you're expertise on the vq should lead us to figure this thing out. As mentioned in the thread earlier, if Nissan's replacing the short-block and that didn't fix it, it's almost gotta be in the heads. PM me with your number (your inbox has been full every time I tried to PM you).

 

40k on my vq35, and I'd say i'm burning about 1q every 5-7k.
Personally, I don't think this is normal for THIS engine. I have no engine mods, and I've owned this thing since new. It's not beaten or raced, but it's gets driven like it was designed to be driven. I have a 6 spd as well.

I switched to Mobil1 @ about 10k, and to my recollection, I did not start burning oil until about 25-30k miles.
I'm REALLY wondering if this is something caused by the Full-Syn blend???

I've always heard that switching back to dino is bad, but I'm thinking I might do it if this oil consumption issue gets any worse.
Again, this engine should NOT be consuming any oil under 100k miles, IMHO.

gr

 

Just a little bit of information. I have this slight rattle and it seems to have gotten worse. Now when I am on the highway at about 40-60mph, with light pressure on the accelerator pedal, I get a constant rattle. It will only go away if I rev higher or back off the pedal. I have ran two full tanks of Shell V-power and it did not cure the rattle. I never checked for oil burning, but I'll take a peek today.

 

Ugh, hope I don't have a problem. I'll have to go check the level. I got some blue smoke out the back on a cold start the other day, which surprised me considering I've only got 38k on the engine. My other car with 58k hasn't done that.

Ok, so cold in CA is only 40F so far. Question then: are most folks on the west coast running 5/30 or should I use something heavier?

 

bought my car with 34,500 on it and changed to mobile one at like 36k. I checked it 2-3k later about (bit foggy on exactly) and it was low, burnt maybe like a quart+. But since my last oil change i really havn't had much of a problem, its been 2-3k, its burnt a little i think but not enough for me to worry. I'm putting royal purple in next and will see if it will burn that. It will be a few oil changes before im 100% sure if its burning or not

 

well i think i figured out why some people are have oil consumption issues. I was reassembling my motor today, i never took rings off pistons and what do i find but the upper/lower oil ring and oil expander ring are all inline with each other. they are supposed too be offset to eliminate possibility of oil blowby.

 

03 SE stock with 48K no oil issues what so ever

 

If that's the only thing causing it, wouldn't the rings keep rotating and not always be lined up? When I tear mine down (we'll have to talk in a month or so. I would like to get a hand from the definitive expert!), I'll definitly look for that. Why doesn't that same thing happen on other engines? Is there something in the rings that prevents this? I've rebuilt a 2.5l Chevy and 1.4l Mistubishi and didn't notice anything to prevent it in either.

 

'03, Mobil 1 Syn. OEM filter. no oil loss, but timing chain rattle on cold starts

Our dealership has replaced 4 motors due to oil consumption since the 5.5gen came out. I checked with several other dealers when I had first heard about this and they all have had less then 10 cases each. What seems to be a big problem is the throttle blade screws. We have had over 30 motors replaced due to this problem (since 9/02), and it affected the p.finder, and altima as well.

 

That's very damning info, coming from someone who works at a Nissan Dealer. It gives creedence to our suspicions. I am definitely going to keep a REAL close eye on my oil levels from here on.
Thanks Matt.
gr

 

What's this about throttle blade screws?

 

recently i had my engine block changed by a nissan dealer for this issue of pinging or rattling in the engine when at 1800-2300 rpm's with a slight pressure on the accelerator. I am at 52,000 miles..i am going to bring it up to the dealer again..what could I tell him is the problem..?

 

It's looking like the rings are bad in the 3.5's. From the sound of things, Nissan fixed it in the 2k5 models. I'll be able to verify in a little while. Getting closer to being able to afford a complete tear-down re-build with a little extra goodies on the side.

 

I think that's too general of a statement. I wish we could get the build dates of everyone who is having an oil burning problem, I wonder if it was during one short time period at the plant when things went wrong. For the most part few people are having this problem.

BTW I had an oil analysis done at 94,000 miles on our 2002SE by Blackstone Labs. I'll post the report when I figure out how. In the meantime, I'll quote their commentary:

"Whatever you're doing to keep wear this low, keep it up! The oil was in good shape physically, containing no moisture, fuel, or coolant. The air and oil filters are working well, too. Great engine!"

A report like the one that Blackstone puts out can help determine many different engine problems, and oil burning is definetly among them (fuel in oil, etc). In this one particular case, oil burning is not an issue.

I encourage everyone to have an oil analysis done (it costs only $20) to get some hard data about their engine health. I'm waiting back for the results on my '96, which has 222,000 miles. It should be interesting to see.

 

Over 84K miles. No engine rattles, no burning oil.

Those are predominantly highway miles with no mods.

 

Awesome, another '03 with over 80k miles like mine. The car might as well be brand new, thats how well it drives. Most of my miles are highway and 0 mods as well.

 

This has been a great read fellas.

Couple things that come to mind when reading...
1qt every 3k is considered normal by most manufacturers of high performance motors. The LS1, LS6, LS2 all burn about a quart every 3k miles. The LT1 burns roughly 1/4 to 1/2 quart every 5k miles.

Several are definately burning more than a quart, I wonder if any of this is blow by from high rpm? This is another thing thats fairly common on high performance motors. The Vettes, Fbodies, Mustangs and lots of other vehicles have this.

3qts every 3k miles is wayyy too much unless you just beat the **** out of the motor and really rev it. Even then it seems steep. But I do know some people that burn a couple quarts every 3k miles due to their driving habbits with their LS1 cars.

Just some thoughts