oil consumption test; foot in mouth

[lachap55]

1. was worry about oil loss in my 2010 370z and at last oil change asked for oil consumption test. i am 58 years old and i read the manual from top to bottom and i read the forum daily.
2. travel to fla. from va; about a 700 plus ride one way and check oil when i got into town. notice that i was a little low...a little under the H mark. parked on leval ground and waited to the next morning to check again with the same results.
3. i knew i had to drive back to fla i did not risk waiting to take the car back to the dealer to check oil lost...i added about an 1/4 to a 1/2QT of oil to the engine and got it back to the H mark. I did not think this was an oil problem just good maitance on the car.
4. got back to va. and checked the oil situation while the car was cold and on level ground and the results were the same...a little under the H mark; did not add oil. went to the dealer to get oil change and explain that i was out of town and added a little oil to engine while i was out of town. he made remarks on my invoice,"found oil level slightly high before oil change"; he did not bring this to my attention while i was at the dealership. i saw the remarks when i got home on my invoice. called dealership and asked why you did not bring this to my attention while i was at the dealership? are you trying to cover your tracks down the road; just in case?
HE JUST...

[Footloose301]

That's about right. You will probably burn a very small amount with the engine running constant 700 miles depending on oil temps and such. Also, there's an H and L mark on the dipstick. It just needs to be between that. You don't necessarily want to have it right at the H mark.... Too much oil is just as bad as not having enough.

[MJB]

Plus your oil level has to drop about 10mm on the dipstick for every 1500 miles for Nissan to replace the engine. Sounds like your car burns just a tiny bit of oil. No big deal IMO.

[synolimit]

Sounds like a lot of other cars. On subis we buy or make AOS's (air oil separators). The PCV systems let a lot of oil into in manifold which comes from blow by pressuring the oil pan during compression. No piston rings are 100% tight and some oil just gets sucked out along with the air pressure by the PCV (which is why they gum up after time). Subis also have the problem with the heads being on their sides and hard turns puke oil out the vents and into the manifold. A AOS can be routed back to the oil pan via the crank vent so whatever pukes out goes right back in after you slow down or stop turning hard. I never had oil issues as so many others did in stock form. I even have a 2013 dodge ram hemi that never sees above 3500 rpm or hard turns. I installed one of my AOS's on it and in 1500 miles had about 4-5oz of pure oil. I did not run the AOS back to the block on my dodge like I did my subi so my AOS acts more like a catch can and I can see and measure what the motor pukes out. I'd look into one if I were you and if it can go back to the block like subis run them. You shouldn't lose a drop if it can be done since this is where most of the oil goes. However some motors have bad piston rings from improper break in so it could be from that too. Again in the subi world a lot of guys where ok with like 130-140 psi during a compression test as long as each cylinder wasnt more than a few psi off of one another but the manual actually went up to like 150-173psi. You could check what nissan says the normal range is and check yours.

FYI, all performance motors I beat on them pretty good during their break in period using a method and I've never had oil loss issues. Keep in mind a crappy break in and poor rings will allow more blow by to enter the pan which means more oil will get sucked out the PCV system and oil will enter the cylinder from below so its a double whammy oil loss.

[DrEvil]

I drive to lower Delaware from central Jersey every weekend and haven't seen a significant drop in my oil. Plus she's my dd. On average that's about 500 mi+ per week. Non issue.

[Dwight Frye]

My 2009 has about 32,000 miles on it. I bought it new. It was consuming about 1.5 to 1.75 quarts between 5000 mile oil changes. While I didn't think that was excessive, I didn't like it. I just figured I would live with it and kept close eye in the level, topping up with 1/4 quart whenever it dropped that much.
Oddly enough, it has consumed zero oil since the last change at 30,000 miles. I have been running Redline 05W-30 since the 5,000 mile mark. Maybe the engine just needed to fully break in and settle down. I still check it often, but am keeping my fingers crossed that the consumption issue solved itself.

[Jordo!]

miles on motor?

If relatively few (< 10K) this may still be an artifact of initial break in. If not, just keep an eye on it.