Before my girl went to work yesterday she noticed her car making a sound so she park it in garage and told me to check it out, when I turned it on to check what the noise was I noticed when it started to warm up it started making sounds from engine so I turned off car, waited a good 10-15 minuted and checked engine oil, to my surprise it wasn't registering on stick, I drained whatever it had including from filter and it turned to be less than a quart .

I changed oil filter and added new and drove it for 2-3 miles and checked, it was ok, there's no leaking on the floor whatsoever but I did noticed that the coolant is not green but brownish color and same level at normal, so my theory is that she has a broken gasket or worse a cracked engine and it's leaking into coolant.

She wants to take it to dealer asap and get it fixed, from what I have searched online the gaskets are going to cost from dealer between $450 - $500 and after labor upper $1200.

What do you guys recommend, take it to dealer, try to find a shop or tackle it if it's not that hard to do?

 

Have a used motor swapped in.

 

No I have not ChrisMan287.

 

I was telling you to have one swapped in lol

 

ChrisMan is absolutely correct. A Used VQ35DE from a junkyard or other source will run you maybe $500. It is easy enough to swap, and it will cost you WAY less than even replacing the gaskets, if that is even the problem (and not a cracked block or head)

If the old motor isnt cracked, you can get something back out of it. Might cost you $500 including renting a cherry picker if your friends are city slickers and dont have one.

+1 for Swapping in a used motor

 

Definitely swap a motor in. Head gasket work is expensive as it is. And if there is more damage done then the dealer is going to charge you tear down after because they are probably going to want to swap a motor in them selves.

 

Yeah I misread!, well if its just a matter of replacing the gaskets then we'll go that route but if the engine is cracked then we'll have to swap the engine, I don't want to replace this engine for another used one that can give us same or worse problems down the road if the problem is that minor.
She is the original owner and has taken well care of her car, looks practically new with 74K on it after 9 years.

 

I don't know how you think a head gasket is minor..

And why ask for recommendations when you already have a plan on what you're going to do?

 

When coolant gets old, it tends to lose its green color and turn a brownish color. How long has it been since the last coolant flush?

 

Ghost,

If you decide to replace the motor, I would suggest you get one out of an 04 or newer Maxima, since the 02 and 03 motors like to drink oil.

 

Flush the coolant and run the car with a water hose into the radiator with the lower hose disconnected so all the water can leave until you see that the water is getting clear then close everything up and fill with coolant?

 

The car only has 74K miles. That ain't the issue.

 

Unless the car was sitting for a long time in heat and what not. 74k does seem to be too low of a mileage to be having a problem like that

Taste the brown in the radiator to see if it's oil

 

Well if oil was getting mixed into the coolant, it would look like chocolate milk and thicken up like gravy. OP didn't mention any thickening, just it turning brown, which it can do with 74K miles and it being in there for several years.

 

Shouldn't be that much of an oil burner either.

 

That's why I love my 2K 222k no oil issues whatsoever swap a vq30 !! lol downgrade

 

Perhaps the OP can post up some good pics so we can make a better judgement call then.

 

Yep, almost 180K on my 2K and i've only added a half quart and it's been 4,000 miles on my current oil change.

 

ChrisMan287
"I don't know how you think a head gasket is minor..
And why ask for recommendations when you already have a plan on what you're going to do?"
I definitely don't think a gasket is a minor issue, I was asking just in case someone else has gone through same issue and what they did about it, the easy thing to do would be swap and I would do it if it was my car but it's hers and she thinks that if it's just the gasket then replacing them is better considering her engine hasn't had that much wear and tear.

T_Behr904
She has never done a coolant flush on it, the reason why I think it's leaking into coolant is because there's no oil in the garage and when I checked the engine on top and bottom I didn't see any oil leaking.

5aprilc
Would the 04 fit fine on that model?, I have an 02 and I know how that it consumes a quart between oil changes.

Thanks for the replys guy, just weighing our options, well hers.

 

That doesn't exactly mean its leaking into the coolant. The nature of the 02-03 is to burn it, so that's why you're not seeing it leaking.

Take some good pics and post them up so we can determine if it's just old coolant losing it's bright green color since she says it's never been flushed and the coolant is 10+ years old, or if it's actual oil in the coolant.

 

Toxic!
Dam how come I didn't think of that sooner, that makes perfect sense, I've done two or three flushes so it would have been a piece of cake.

 

I would even suggest to unbolt the VIAS plate and check to see how much of the missing oil is in the upper intake manifold, when was the last time the plugs were changed (any oil in chamber 5)? at 74k I would assume you still have the original plugs in there as well as the original rear valve cover (which tend to develop hair line cracks and oil leakage) and is my information way off ... when the head gasket is woren doesn't that lead to coolant getting into the oil causing the oil to get a kind of milky color? I don't remember ever reading of the opposite taking place such as oil getting into the coolant

 

The delaer is going to charge her labor to rip the head off and see if there is a crack, or if its just a gasket. In either case, those are not common problems for this motor. Look at it like this, even if it is just bad head gaskets, you still are stuck with a oil burning VQ. If you go for broke, and get an 04-08 VQ35 (fits just fine), then you not only fix the gaskets, but you do it cheaper, and you eliminate your oil burning issue, most likely with a motor with the same or less miles than the current one.

Cant go wrong.

also...

How long has it been since the last oil change.

 

Thats a good point...still doesnt explain the brown coolant though.

Its worth asking.

OP: Are you using pink or green antifreeze? Pink antifreeze gets brown-ish after a few thousand miles and really brown if its in there a long time. Green stays pretty damn green even if its been in there for 100K

 

^^^ you are correct on the brownish color coolant my best guess is that it is the original fill and has not been changed for the entire 74k which would at this point would start to go off color.

 

Try it just to get all the gunk out and fill it up with oil that same day so you can measure oil vs if the coolant goes brown again

 

Yes that's what i've been saying... I would like it if the OP posts up some good high quality pics so we can see what's going on. Oil mixing into coolant will start to look like chocolate milk or coffee with creamer in it and will thicken up like gravy. You will see globs of it forming on the radiator cap, and more as more oil mixes into the coolant.

 

I've explained the coolant turning brown. Yes coolant that old can lose it's green color. Mileage is also a factor, but i've seen coolant 3 years old on a car with 100K miles (dude did alot of driving) still look green, but not as bright green as it was when it was new.

Lets wait for the OP to post up some pics before we go any further with this, because this thread's conversation is just going around in circles now.

 

Okay just took this pictures, the coolant looks like what you guys have been saying that it should look like that for that age, I made a comparison with her moms Altima which I just flushed about two months ago and filled with prestone 50/50.

pg

pg

pg

Comparison between Maxima(dark color) and Altima (clear).
pg

 

You should see the 3rd gen that I have at my house that nobody drives. There's rust-like deposits in the coolant

 

hey ghost, can you get a pic of the radiator cap view of the Maxima that might have the leak? The overflow reservoir could still be pretty green even if the radiator was full of oil.

 

Hmm, doesn't look quite brown enough to be the amount of oil that you explained you have lost. I could be wrong though.

 

No CaTalyst.X it fell from cap when I removed it.

 

Ohh im sorry I read the post wrong, both of those pictures are of the maxima coolant.

That coolant doesn't have any oil in it. Thats a totally normal amount of brown. Id say the engine is burning the oil.

Here is what I recommend.

1: Flush the coolant according to what Toxic! said.

2: Change the oil (seems like you just did that)

3: Check the oil every morning and note how long it takes for the oil to show MIN on the dipstick. Note how many miles that is, and report back.

 

I was hoping to see a pic of the radiator cap as I requested earlier. Oh well...

 

 

Yikes...

 

Also, wouldn't oil in the radiator/coolant cause the engine to run hotter? How does the temp look in your car after normal / daily driving?

 

If there was a qt of oil in the coolant, then yeah for sure. If nothing else, it would gum up the water pump/radiator and it wouldnt flow right.

There is no way there is Engine Oil Capacity - (the 1/2 qt the OP got out of the pan) = roughly 3.5 qts in the coolant.

ghost: Your coolant/oil is not mixing. The coolant system capacity is only about 8qts, there is no way it mixed in that much oil, especially with how clean your coolant was. That engine is burning alot of oil.

However, if you went 5-6K without changing the oil, that is not SUPER uncommon, as some maxima.org members add about 1qt per 1000 miles. I think you just have an oil burning VQ35DE on your hands my friend.

 

I told her to take her car to work tomorrow, will monitor oil when she gets to work and when she comes home, will do flush either during the week or next saturday and report back.
Oh yeah I checked the temperature when I drove it and it's normal, now I'm thinking it's the oil burning issue, btw it's been a little over 3k since last oil changed and changed from dealer oil (she used do oil changes there) to mobil 1 full synthetic at home.