Everyone with oil temp issues

SoCal 370Z · 05-07-2009, 04:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wstar

Honestly, (and remember most of this post is conjecture based on what I've seen in my car, and what others have posted here)...

I think even in the warmer parts of the US, for your average commuter that doesn't push the car too hard, they can probably live without the cooler. The temps may jump from time to time to 240 or maybe 250, but probably not enough to hit limp mode by far, and the engine will live plenty long to meet the warranty obligations.

But, how do you explain the following posts? And there is another somewhere on the forum where the owner was simply in stop and go traffic and had to pullover. Also, since a 370Z owner can move to another state where then they would start developing overheating problems. And a bigger question: Would you be at ease letting your wife drive long distances—alone, or with an elderly passenger—knowing there's a potential overheating issue?

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Weapon

Sent my Letter. I live in Az. I haven't even reved my car past 4k yet. I only have 500 miles on it and i am hitting 250 degrees.

It's pretty insane that i can go from 180 to 250 within 5 minutes. I can only imagine how much quicker it will go up once i start actually driving the car up a mountain.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lww

Brisk driving on Skyline Blvd. in Santa Clara this afternoon completely within the posted speed limit results in oil temps up to 290/300 and kicks in ECU limp mode...

2009 370Z all stock. Water temps appeared fine the whole time.

Car is going back to the dealer with a "chronic" oil over-heating problem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Speedy10

We had 90+* this week in cali.... Well, on the freeway with NO traffic and windows down, saw 265 on the gauge....... Don't want to think about what it would have hit in stop and go traffic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jaxchuck

Hello from Florida.
Temperature today was 86. I am still breaking the car, in so am keeping the revs below 4K.
Oil temperarature gauge hit 260 with moderate speed on a quiet stretch of road.
I am calling 800-647-7261 right now. I want an oil cooler!

This forum is great. You guys kept me from wasting money on a worthless NISMO radiator cap and even though I have a set of Berk HFCs in the garage with an Invidia cat back and Status-Elite intake on the way, the car will stay stock until Nissan gets the engine heat under control.

Thanks!

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheWeatherman

I just got off the phone with my Midwest regional consumer affairs specialist. I thought I was never going to have a high-heat issue, but it just happened to me this past Sunday, May 3rd while at a fundraiser for the Hunger Task Force in Milwaukee. The car actually started to smell in the cabin, and my oil temp spiked to 275-285 within 4 minutes of light-spirited driving. It was 70 degrees out and I just had an oil change with the expensive Nissan Ester Oil. It actually took about 40 minutes of light driving along Lake Michigan where the temperature was 56 degrees to cool the thing back down to 200, where it normally is. Man, that's not good at all.

So anyway, she was not aware of this problem, but I guided her to this site! She looked and sounded concerned and appreciated the information. She was going to talk to her engineering department and find out more. The word's getting out. I told her that a lot of us don't want to put on aftermarket kits to fix this because of the warranty. (Those of you who are going to blast me saying that those won't affect the warranty, keep that to yourselves.) We bought the cars not knowing that overheating was going to be an issue. I've owned a lot of brand new Nissan/Infinitis, (my daily driver is an '09 Infiniti FX35.) No overheating on that one. I just said to her, "If you are coming out with this kit, can you please just make it cheaper for those of us who already have bought the car? We had a budget for what we wanted to spend on the vehicle, and didn't plan on spending extra money on a engineering mistake that we weren't aware of." We should all know that cars are not perfect, and there will be some flubs on occasion. I also said, "I can understand if I have a bad power window, or a lock switch that breaks. If my dash lights burn out, I have to have it fixed. No big deal. An overheating engine with light driving is a serious flaw that needs to be fixed ASAP." She was really nice and said she will call me back as soon as she gets any new details on the situation. I'm not happy if we have to pay for this cooler, but if we do, I asked her to tell corporate to make it as cheap as possible. I'm sure they don't want to have to deal with Lemon Law issues. They were very nice though. I hope something's done soon with the warmer temperatures.

Oh, one more thing... I mentioned the 370's TV ad to her. I said, "Do you know the ad? The guy out spinning around and having fun in the car? That's what we bought ours for. To have fun with. To find out the car can't even drive up a steep grade in warm conditions is completely the opposite of what was told to us. We love our cars, but just wish we didn't have this major problem. Please help us." She couldn't have been nicer.

Thoughts?

wstar · 05-08-2009, 12:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SoCal 370Z

But, how do you explain the following posts? And there is another somewhere on the forum where the owner was simply in stop and go traffic and had to pullover. Also, since a 370Z owner can move to another state where then they would start developing overheating problems. And a bigger question: Would you be at ease letting your wife drive long distances—alone, or with an elderly passenger—knowing there's a potential overheating issue?

Well, we'll have to see how this all plays out. There are a lot of factors that go into this, and it's hard for me to trust the exact conditions under which other cars are reaching the stated temps based on a post here (no offense to other oil temp reporters intended). I'm mostly basing my ever-evolving opinion of this issue on my own experiences.

It takes me a fair amount of effort to hit 250, I haven't even done so in a while. The kind of driving I do to reach 250-ish on a public road, while it can be done without technically violating any laws, is well outside the usual casual driving experience. When I blend in with traffic and drive reasonably normally, depending on the weather I tend to stabilize somewhere around 210-225, with 10-15 degree spikes up in temp if I mess around a bit like any person driving a sporty car occasionally would.

Then again, I still haven't gotten a good week of truly hotter temps to test in around here, the weather has been pretty mild relatively speaking. I still want a cooler regardless because I'm not a normal driver, and even if this issue turns out as best as it possibly can, I know it's going to affect me regularly in the summer. I'm not, however, yet convinced that the sky is falling and that this is a critical design flaw worthy of a recall.

rackley · 05-08-2009, 07:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wstar

Well, we'll have to see how this all plays out. There are a lot of factors that go into this, and it's hard for me to trust the exact conditions under which other cars are reaching the stated temps based on a post here (no offense to other oil temp reporters intended). I'm mostly basing my ever-evolving opinion of this issue on my own experiences.

It takes me a fair amount of effort to hit 250, I haven't even done so in a while. The kind of driving I do to reach 250-ish on a public road, while it can be done without technically violating any laws, is well outside the usual casual driving experience. When I blend in with traffic and drive reasonably normally, depending on the weather I tend to stabilize somewhere around 210-225, with 10-15 degree spikes up in temp if I mess around a bit like any person driving a sporty car occasionally would.

Then again, I still haven't gotten a good week of truly hotter temps to test in around here, the weather has been pretty mild relatively speaking. I still want a cooler regardless because I'm not a normal driver, and even if this issue turns out as best as it possibly can, I know it's going to affect me regularly in the summer. I'm not, however, yet convinced that the sky is falling and that this is a critical design flaw worthy of a recall.

That's because you have an AT car. Most or all of the evidence points to the 7AT cars not having the overheating problem nearly as bad as the MT cars. My buddy here on base has a 7AT and he cruises at 200*F and rarely hits 220 even with hard driving. My bottom oil temp is 220 and I go up from there to 250 before I pull over for fear of melting the engine.

7ATs do not seem to have the overheating problem nearly as bad. So because you have a 7AT without an overheating problem does not invalidate the experiences of everyone else with MTs who are overheating.

Captain Tuttl · 05-08-2009, 07:51 AM

What is the correlation between AT running cooler than MT?

Is it because on average, the shifts tend to be at a lower engine speed with AT vs. MT?

Or does the AT model have some additional cooling capabilities built in?

High oil temps with primarily the MT is a pretty significant data point.

spearfish25 · 05-08-2009, 07:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain Tuttl

What is the correlation between AT running cooler than MT?

Is it because on average, the shifts tend to be at a lower engine speed with AT vs. MT?

Or does the AT model have some additional cooling capabilities built in?

High oil temps with primarily the MT is a pretty significant data point.

I'm not sure that constraining the temps to the MTs is an accurate assumption. My 6MT has only hit 245 once and that was after spirited driving followed by gridlock traffic for an hour on an 80F day. Otherwise, we've had 70F weather and my temp hasn't gone above 220 even with aggressive driving. As someone (semtex or wstar) said earlier, the temps seem to be settling down a bit as the engine is breaking in. Perhaps initial engine friction is gradually being reduced with the added engine hours. I also did my first oil change with Nissan Ester Oil at 1300 mi. I'm at 1500 now.

travisjb · 05-08-2009, 09:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain Tuttl

What is the correlation between AT running cooler than MT?

Is it because on average, the shifts tend to be at a lower engine speed with AT vs. MT?

Or does the AT model have some additional cooling capabilities built in?

High oil temps with primarily the MT is a pretty significant data point.

here's the data on 6mt v 7at oil overheating
Oil Temp Survey

spearfish25 · 05-08-2009, 04:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by travisjb

here's the data on 6mt v 7at oil overheating
Oil Temp Survey

That final graph of 7AT vs 6MT only compares temperature and transmission. There are an untold number of variables not accounted for in that comparison that makes a generalized assumption of "the 6MT overheats more than the 7AT" incorrect. For example, 6MT owners may be the vast majority of the cohort who tracks their cars, they may be confined to a geographic location that has a warmer climate, etc etc.

All you can say is that, as a whole, 6MT owners have noted higher temperatures than 7AT owners. However, the results in NO WAY imply that under the same conditions, with the same driver, at the same RPMs, the 6MT runs hotter.

With regard to the transmission plumbing through the radiator of the 7AT, I don't know how that would provide any form of oil cooling for the engine.

travisjb · 05-08-2009, 04:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spearfish25

That final graph of 7AT vs 6MT only compares temperature and transmission. There are an untold number of variables not accounted for in that comparison that makes a generalized assumption of "the 6MT overheats more than the 7AT" incorrect. For example, 6MT owners may be the vast majority of the cohort who tracks their cars, they may be confined to a geographic location that has a warmer climate, etc etc.

All you can say is that, as a whole, 6MT owners have noted higher temperatures than 7AT owners. However, the results in NO WAY imply that under the same conditions, with the same driver, at the same RPMs, the 6MT runs hotter.

With regard to the transmission plumbing through the radiator of the 7AT, I don't know how that would provide any form of oil cooling for the engine.

Not sure why you would think that the distribution of AT owners geographically would be any different than the distribution of MT owners geographically... my guess is that outside the pattern of more ATs in the US vs abroad, the distribution within the US (hotter areas vs not) would be similar for AT v MT.

I'm going to pull the excel spreadsheet with all the variables in the survey, and if you're curious you can go in and analyze. It includes variables for usage, ambient temperatures, transmission, miles on the car, and of course overheating patterns.

wstar · 05-08-2009, 10:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rackley

That's because you have an AT car. Most or all of the evidence points to the 7AT cars not having the overheating problem nearly as bad as the MT cars. My buddy here on base has a 7AT and he cruises at 200*F and rarely hits 220 even with hard driving. My bottom oil temp is 220 and I go up from there to 250 before I pull over for fear of melting the engine.

7ATs do not seem to have the overheating problem nearly as bad. So because you have a 7AT without an overheating problem does not invalidate the experiences of everyone else with MTs who are overheating.

If there's any difference between 6MT and 7AT in this regard, it pretty much has to come down to one of a few things:

1) If the 7AT's fluid is cooled by the radiator (there are hard lines plumbed straight into the radiator from the transmission, IIRC, but I'll have to go look again or check the svc manual), this may have some sort of indirect effect on the overall cooling efficiency of the car, in some way that I can't imagine right now. Edit: confirmed this in the svc manual, TM.pdf Pg 295, we do have transmission fluid lines running to the radiator on the 7AT

2) It could be shifting behavior. Not user shifting behavior, but what Travis was describing earlier: the 7AT rarely if ever over-revs between gears on upshifts. You click and the revs snap down instantly. 6MT guys are seeing the revs spike a bit before dropping. Given that (as Travis noted, and I agree) the rise in oil temp seems to be affected exponentially by a rise in RPM, this extra time at higher RPMs near the top of the range could be having more effect than you'd expect.

3) User behavior, meaning that basically 7AT drivers drive like grandmas relative to how the 6MT guys drive. In the sense that almost all people who are tracking the car will buy 6MT this is definitely true on average. That aside, even on the street, most 7AT buyers are AT-type of people, and they just drive different, and will often use 'D', which keeps revs *way* down when you're light on the throttle, much lower than where I manual driver would usually hold them at light throttle. However, this isn't the case for me. I just came from spending 10 years behind a 6MT transmission, and I drive my 7AT as close to how you'd drive a manual as possible, and while I'll never approach full track conditions on the street (especially on the braking side of the equation), I'm running the car pretty aggressively.

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05-08-2009, 07:51 AM	#4 (permalink)
Captain Tuttl Base Member Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: PA Posts: 36 Drives: 2019 370Z Nismo Rep Power: 18	What is the correlation between AT running cooler than MT? Is it because on average, the shifts tend to be at a lower engine speed with AT vs. MT? Or does the AT model have some additional cooling capabilities built in? High oil temps with primarily the MT is a pretty significant data point.