This has been happening for almost a year now but i've finally decided enough is enough. i just hate this noise!

whenever i start the car, it sounds as if i'm pressing the gas pedal (when i'm not) and it makes a loud scratchy whine. is this the starter possibly going out?

 

Did you check your oil levels? Your oil might settle, and the engine might be low at first, and when it's started, the oil gets redistributed as it should.

 

well i've always stayed on top of my oil changes and i use mobil synthetic so i'm not sure why that would affect the starting problem since it never did that when i first purchased the car over 2 years ago. you could be right, i have no idea....but it never did it before so something happened along the way. thanks.

 

Reason I ask is that I experience something similar to this, and when I checked, I found I was low almost 1.5 liters. It was crazy. So i topped it up, and it seemed to have gone away for a while, but it's slowly creeping back, so i figured check that and see if i'm the only one getting it.

 

i believe 6 quarts of oil is used when changing. are you saying i should try 7 then?

 

Maybe this is the problem, the manual states 4.25 quarts of oil (VQ35) and I may be wrong, but I think it's the same for the VQ30.

 

Check first position on this page http://www.nissanhelp.com/Ownership/Maxima/EngineM.htm
From what they say you have to replace your starter

 

wow, that's exactly it! thanks Arek.

so the starter it is. going to go do some price checks now. thanks again....and the other guys for their input as well.

 

yeah 6 liters is way too much. I buy the 4.25 liter cans @ Crappy Tire, and even then I top it up after 1000 km's.

 

+1

I had this same problem on my 4th gen and it was the starter. BTW, I think you can just re-grease the starter gear to fix the problem.

 

what grease would you use to do this?

 

Here's the write-up on how to do the whole thing...

http://www.motorvate.ca/mvp.php/516