po8pimp

Allright so I get ready to go to work today and I back out of the garage. I run inside and leave the engine running for half a sec to tell the kids to pick up their crap in the front yard. I come back out and the car is making this loud ticking sound. I thought ohh no what could it be so I figured rev it and see if it goes away or what it sounds like so I did and it went away and slowly came back. then I figured maybe it's just something loose or whatever so I put it in reverse and back out the drive way and start to drive it when it gets louder while costing. I press the gas and it goes away. So then I come to a round about and I thought the engine was going to blow as I was coasting around. Back to the house I went. parked the car and took the truck to work. I thought maybe it could be the timing chain tensioner because that's where the sound seemed to be coming from. So I got home a bit ago and figured I would check the engine fluids first being the last time I did was 3200 miles ago. Turns out I have NO oil. None not even a drop on the dip stick. I am so dumb founded right now. I change the oil religiously on this damn car and have absolutely not a drop of oil on the ground where I park it. So I got on the net and looked up nissan maxima oil burning and found a few things. Most are pointing to leaking fuel injectors causing oil to get diluted and in turn cause leakby of the cylinders. Could this be my problem and if so, how can I find out for sure, before I let Nissan rape me with diagnostics fees and BS they like to pull? I am putting oil in it tomorrow in hopes that the ticking goes away and I will put in an additive to try and seal any leaking valves. All input is appreciated on this. TIA

po8pimp

You know come to think of it my last oil change was done by nissan. I wonder if they forgot to put oil back in it. Could that even be possible? to run an engine this long with no oil? Doesn't make sense to me. I guess doing to oil fill and check test is in my near future. What's a good interval to check the oil for burning. I am kinda paranoid and thinking every 10 miles or so. that's alot of checks.

Proceedbob

Well no oil on the stick could be two quarts low (or worse), plenty of things operate on oil pressure, cam chain tensioner, valve lifters. How much oil did you have to add in order to top it off? Nissan and all manufactures agreed on an industry standard of one quart per 1000 miles as normal consumption (personally I would be horrified by this) but that is what they use as a yardstick. Top it up, note the quantity, listen for any odd noise and monitor it for awhile and see if any trends develop, lay off the additive BTW most are crap and playing back yard tribologist is not advised, a lot of science went into that quart of oil and tossing in random additive packs could cause problems.

ramberg

iTrader: (29)

Check around the injecters to see if these is any oil on them. You said you changed the oil 3200 miles ago. If the shop did not put oil in the engine it would have broken down before now. Put in a quart of oil and see what happens. Let us know what happens. I check my oil very other fill-up. G/L

KRRZ350

iTrader: (29)

Hate to say it, but this is my experience on [now] 3 different VQ35's that were run to low on oil. Hope your motor is under warranty.

chernmax

iTrader: (15)

How long is your drive to work? What was the timeframe (week/month etc) since your last oil change? If they did forget to put oil I suspect you would have known about it on the drive home from the shop. You should check the ground where you park at work and see if you left the oil there verse home!!!

po8pimp

so I changed the oil today and got a little less than 2 quarts to come out. Decided instead of using 5w30 I would use 10w30 and see if it stays in there a little better. I will check my oil about every 100 miles to see how much I am consuming. I really hope the statement made earlier about nissan says 1 quart for every 1000 miles is normal because that's far from normal concidering they suggest changing oil every 6k miles that would mean you are 2 quarts shy of making it in to the shop before being empty. I change my oil every 3k just in case. Anyways the ticking went away which is a sigh of relief, and the engine sounds alot quieter which makes sense concidering. I found a class action lawsuit for 350z and g35 owners for 2004-2009 vq35 cars. Then saw a thing on 2004 2.5l altimas burning oil till the engine seizes up. This makes me wonder if the maxima's are the same concidering the engine is the same. I didn't find what the exact cause was but saw alot about the injectors causing it. What is the recommended interval for having injectors replaced. I don't want to waste time replacing one broken one and paying for labor and what not when I can do all at once. I also read that you would not see a bad injector indication from outside the engine, so in order to check I would have to pull them. I might go and get a smog test to see if that will give any clues. I remember having a pressure test of the internals done at about 50k miles ago and results were normal according to Nissan.

Y2k2maxse

iTrader: (1)

i have the same oil burning isse..im adding oil like every week or 2. about a quart and thats about 1000 miles. no leaking on the driveway.

Y2k2maxse

iTrader: (1)

btw i thought your name was tia until i realized it meant for thanks in advance (i think) ? lol..call me stupid...

po8pimp

have u tried any stop leak additives?

04MAX_ILLIN

iTrader: (3)

My .02 ....stop leak additives are a crappy temporary fix. Why add this junk into your car when as stated earlier in this post that alot of time, effort and science has went into producing the engine oils we all use.
If people checked their oil level on a more consistent basis and used a decent oil at that then maybe they wouldnt be frying piston rings and in turn burning oil??
Not saying the OP uses crap oil or drove without oil for a period of time but just stating the obvious in general for everyone.

Lovemycar

don't put that **** in your car as he stated there's no leak

po8pimp

Saying oil additives and fuel system additives is **** then you should talk with your service adviser about what they put in the oil when they change your oil. Also Nissan wouldn't sell additives or suggest adding them to your car at the dealer if they were horrible for the engine. I have used them in both my Pathfinder and my Explodition as I have stated earlier. Just not in the max due to not having a need. In the Pathfinder I have used flush and stop leak and both have done what they stated. I have also used Lucas in all my fuel systems and notice a difference in performance for sure. Seafoam to clean out my intakes and quite a few other things. Royal purple coolant additive and Hyperlube additives. List is endless. Some I agree are a waste of money but I have learned from wasting money on those. I have not yet added anything to my Maxima as far as additives for oil but I did use 10W30 vice 5W30 to see if that helps. I was actually considering 15W50 racing oil but never heard of it till I saw it the other day. I have yet to pinpoint the cause of oil loss but when I do then I will try and fix it the right way if I can.

As for the statement about checking the oil and changing it at the right intervals, I do. I normally check my oil in between changing oil and have noticed no loss of oil. Of course this one time I did not I ran into this problem. Nissan is well aware of the oil burning issue with all of the VQ35's and now I will be checking and documenting my oil consumption to monitor changes. I highly recommend everyone do a couple checks prior to the 3000 mile oil changes as well so they don't end up frying anything. A new engine is not what I need to worry about right now. If a 5 dollar bottle of additive does the job in keeping oil in my engine and protecting my engine components then you can bet it will be added to my car's grocery list. This also gives me yet another excuse to upgrade the internals on this thing. So stimulus comes around and have to put money back into the economy then this might be my way of doing so.

KRRZ350

iTrader: (29)

Nissan actually recommends AGAINST additives, and when I say Nissan I don't mean the service department at a stealership, I mean it's in the FSM & owners manual.

po8pimp

I agree however the stealership/service department is a direct representative of Nissan. Anything done by them will not void your warrenty. I am telling you they sell fuel system additives, Royal Purple products, and BG products.

PSYCHOMAX

iTrader: (2)

I had the same exact problem as po8pimp last year. It was around New Years and it had been around 3 weeks since I checked the oil last. I started the car, heard the loud ticking, was startled, and figured that it was very cold out and perhaps the oil hadn't cycled through yet. The noise sort of went away and I drove it only to have the noise return with a vengeance 3 miles later, accompanied by a significant drop in power - and a near heart attack as all I could think of was the notorious engine-blowing pre-cat failure that I've read about. I eased off the throttle and the noise went away. After checking the oil and finding nothing on the stick, I added the only 2 quarts of oil that I had with me - which barely registered on the stick - and worried for the rest of the month.

Now here's the weird part; the car has been fine ever since! (Knock on vinyl!) I’ve been keeping an eye on the oil and I check it every couple of weeks. I normally lose a half a quart every 1500 miles or so (this was always the case with my car); although it seems to be getting better as time goes on.

brio_max

iTrader: (9)

Well, my car is also burning oil. Something like 1.5 quarts per 6.000 miles + some mistery coolant lose

I'm wondering, if my oil lose is due to EGR or fuel injector problems, would an oil pressure test confirm whether they are the reason for burning oil or not?

VigilanteMax

iTrader: (4)

Hard to read your statements when I have a chubby staring at your avatar.