Seriously, don't flame me...Is the VQ35 a garbage engine? Oil consumption seems to plague almost all of them: 5.5 Max's, Altimas, Pathfinders, Exterras. Would you ever buy another nissan with this engine?

Considering an 02 pathy and could really use your feedback guys.

Just to clarify, I have 00 VQ3.0 Max and Love it.

 

Mine consumes a bit of oil. I wouldnt consider it a garbage engine though. I would say it is the only negitive thing about it. They are reliable, easy to fix for an average do it yourselfer, cheap to replace and despite the oil consumption on many of them they still last a long time. It doesnt take much to open up the power on them as well, not sure if your gonna go that route with a pathfinder though. There are many people on here who don't experiance oil consumption so I guess it's just the luck of the draw.

 

knock on wood...mine doesn't eat any oil..

 

VQ35 garbage??? no. It was on Ward's 10 best engines for about 6 years if I recall correctly. Some of them have moderate oil consumption, which honestly isn't a big deal. Mine does not consume anymore, but it use to. It never bothered me to put a quart in every 1500 miles. I just treated it as regular maintenance. On the VQ35 the oil consumption is generally do to weak piston rings or a cracked valve cover(was my problem)

Hope that helps

 

Not thrilled with excess oil consumption but I love the effortless torque the engine has.

 

the 3.5 is not garbage, the oil consumption has nothing to do the actual 3.5 itself,but the pre-cats. i have an 02 3.5 6mt that i bought 1 year and 1/2 ago, i bought it not knowing it burned oil and found out the hard way that it did(ran very low on oil and smoked some bucket tappets). recently i bought an almost brand new engine and installed headers (which gets rid of the pre-cats) and i put about 7000miles on the motor without a drop burnt. the reason the pre-cats cause oil consumption is because they start to deteriorate and get pulled back into the engine and destroy the cylinder walls. when we pulled my motor out and took the cats off, the front cat had a chunk missing from it and the rear catalyst material itself was loose in the case. this problem was common on the qr25de (altima 2.5 and sentra spec v) as well. its hard to tell before buying it if it burns oil,but if your buying from a dealer i would recommend putting some miles on it while its still in the warranty period and keep checking the level.

 

^^^

The screen in the pre-cat starts to deteriorate correct?

Hell i have a 3.0 and i want a 3.5 and im sure im not the only one

 

2nd 5.5 gen and i don't put any oil in it at all

 

I have 85000 on my 02 max and i dont burn a drop of oil if it does its super minimal and I even made the switch from dino to synthetic oil at about 76000 miles. I first did a bled and next oil change did full synthetic no problems.

 

I agree with Nismowolfe..I have an 02 also with 85K and I switched to synthetic at about 70K. I (knock on wood) don't have the oil burning problem that seems to plague the VQ3.5 engine....the engine runs great, gets good gas mileage, and pulls effortlessly at any RPM.

 

I tolerate the oil consumption and crap rings for the torque and 6 speed. I wouldn't bother with the 3.5 for a pathfinder. I'd look at honda toyota and mitsubishi instead.

 

mine doesnt burn at all
switched to mobil1 at 70k, now it has 85k, never had any problem with the car.

 

i love my superior engine to your weak 3.0L.

no oil consumption issues here.

 

Its a ****ty engine, which is why they use it in so many models. Logic: 404

 

I also had a 02 pathfinder and had no issues loved the truck wish we still had it.

 

Burns 1qt every 2-3 months, That engine restore 6cyl can stuff and some z max does wonders...It's not really that bad....I don't like it but it's not that bad...I love the car though, very comfortable and powerful, I like...I just wish I had a nice jap girl, that would almost complete me at this point lol...

 

As a former 02 Maxima owner, effortless torque is the reason why I may go back to a 5.5G Maxima once the lease on my 07 AV6 expires. (Sidenote: The Accord V6 is a nice car that gets going on the highways but is torqueless wonder...relatively speaking.)

That said, my son's 05 Altima 3.5SE has not had any issues with excessive oil consumption.

 

Over 10 years

 

no it cant be over 10 years
VQ35DE was introduced in 2002, then replaced by VQ35HR in 2007, so I'd say 5 years.

 

Wait wait a second here.............

3.0 weak??? you try and rev to 7500 see what you come up with. And without your 3.0 design you wouldnt have your vq35.............

 

The few bucks in burnt oil every month or two is well worth the extra power. The vq35 is an awesome engine, there is a reason why nissan and infiniti have put this engine in almost every vehicle.

 

oil burin= race motor hells yeaaaa!!!!11

 

My Dad has an '04 V6 Accord and I agree, just doesn't have that fat midrange the VQ35 does. His engine seems to pull better from 5500 to redline though but the VIAS block-off plate ought to even the score. Nothing will help the mileage though, he gets 30-31 freeway, I get 26 (doing the math, not going by my overly optimistic trip computer ).

 

Being able to get 30mpg does go a long way with gas prices being back on the rise....again! My AV6 pulls about as well as the VQ in my 02 Maxima but you really have to floor it to extract the power. The Maxima pulls well at PT whereas the AV6's throttle has the calibration of a light switch.....which is typical of most Hondas. It's either power on or power off.

..and I wont even go into how pathetic the AV6 is off the line. In fairness to the AV6 though, if racing is not in the cards then it's generally a great all around family car and the J30A5 does feel a bit more refined than the VQ35DE. (Though not enough to overlook its power defecit vs the VQ.)

Back on topic, my old Maxima is owned by my wife's cousin and I've driven once or twice recently. It runs about as smooth as I would expect it to with 75k on the clock.

 

an accord v6 and a maxima aren't even in the same sales group/car grouping
compare altimas to accords

 

IMO i wouldnt do a 3.5 swap in my only DD car. oil consumption is a plague to me, i want to just drive and change oil every 3K miles, not in between adding oil. now if its just your project car, by all means do it, its not that expensive anymore, and the power is very good for a NA build. But nothing beats that good ole trusty 3.0 for reliability, then add some boost if you want more power

 

ftw

 

1 quart every 250 miles... oil consumption sucks, but i've learned to live with it i suppose

 

Not all of them have it bud...and adding oil isn't as big of a deal as people with 3.0s want to make it out to be.lol But like you say, we all have our own opinion.

fwiw I don't think either engine holds enough oil for their displacement. The 1.8L engine from my old car held 4.5qt as well.

 

my 98' burns a drop every 3000 miles......

 

wow that's a lot. time to fix that rear gasket.

 

just changed both the valve covers.. one bolt snapped off the rear valve cover though.. maybe thats what did it?

 

Is this definitive....in other words, is there a consensus on the pre-cats as the culprit or is this an isolated cause?

P.S. Bought the truck (no oil loss) and Good-God...no wonder some 3.5 owners don't sweat adding oil, this thing is NICE. Power at the touch of the throttle, leather, heated seats, moon roof, etc..I test drove a brand new fully loaded 2009 Honda Pilot and it had nothing on this truck..

 

The most direct Honda competitor to the 5.5G Maxima was the 7G Honda Accord V6 and to some degree the 3.2TL Type S.

 

maybe, im' not sure if it could hurt it that bad though. Well if you got $6000 to dish out Nissan is always selling brand new VQ35s =)

 

what is oil burning 272000+ miles

 

my car never burns or eats oil, im the original owner and switched to syn at 10k

 

this is not definitive... how does this make sense when so many people burn oil before and after headers? it were the pre-cats, then my (and many other people's) oil burning would have stopped when headers were put on the car.. the reason your oil burning stopped was because of the new engine, not the headers

 

What did you do differently??

• Longer break-in
• Headers very early
• Syntenic oil from the start
• Rarely exceed a certain RPM

Anything that you could think of which may have prevented/avoided this issue?

 

i bought the car used 2 years ago with 230000 miles on it. i did not know what was wrong with or how it was taken care of. i beat the crap out it on a daily basis. everything is stock including the exhaust except for the muffler. i only thing i do religiously is the oil change every 2000 miles with regular dino oil.