:happydance:

I heard that low friction DLC just makes the oil 'slip' past the valve seals and burn off more easily :stirthepot:

Huh?

So much misinformation in this thread. No piston rings take THOUSANDS of miles to break in, at least that should never be the case. With an OEM engine that has plateau-honed cylinder walls and pre-lapped piston rings, your rings and cylinder walls will break in within a matter of seconds. Really all you're doing in the first couple hundred miles is ensuring the peaks of the oiling cross hatch are flattened all the way (the plateau honing process gets most of this done) and that all of the valleys are cleaned out.

If you're having oil consumption past 1000 miles or so, there is likely something wrong that will rear its ugly head later. An engine has only so much "time" for a proper break-in to occur - after that window, your cylinder walls will likely be permanently glazed to some extent.

OEM-recommended break-in procedure is just CYA on their part.

That said, who knows where the root cause of the oil consumption problem on the VHR lies... Nissan will likely never admit to their fault. But I don't understand the point of a bunch of people who have probably never even touched the inside of an engine throwing around a bunch of conjecture. I'm fine if a bunch of experienced engine builders and tuners like myself want to have an intelligent, experience-based discussion proposing what the root cause might be, but what's going on in all of these oil recommendation and oil consumption threads is just asinine.

Most of these engines are machine built. I wonder if it is a certain VIN range that is having trouble.

What?!? How dare you be sensible! My God man, this is the Internet after all!!! You can't expect the voice of reason to carry the day - that will never do!


;)

This is not a problem of DLC, this is normal for all (0W60), 5W30 winter & summer oils that are put inside the engine because of a world wide climate selling strategic desicion because of a cheap purchase deal for this oil. This oil has a higher consumption if the engine is not hot (often short track driving MacDonald disease.. i have the 2 fast and 2 furious pick up tool ever..joking ) . Its only normal temperature tolerance with high viscosity oil.. physics ..thats all. That means not that this viscosity is a bad choise, it only has a higher consumtion than a 10W40 (allowed in the 370z german service manual) in the cold start phase..thats all. Of course its the best choice for the manufacturer.. But if you read the nissan bulletin..there must be a production issue too.. and that is not acceptable...
P.S. this funky oils kill the mass flow senor faster if you have a turbo engine and a high rpm longtime abuse driver in cold start phase and some age on the turbo bearing..selfdestruction procedure with the knowledge gap blubbering forum users...the preference dividend of the tuners (colored pullys):tiphat:

0W60 was advertised and sold in germany some years ago (6) ..sorry ******** product

I am at 28,000 miles, currently. Actually awaiting the oil analysis (to be done today @ Blackstone). Last oil report had an elevation in lead (which they attributed to a bearing streak...which makes me a little nervous).

I have used Castrol Syntec 0W-30 since 5000 miles and have had ZERO oil consumption beyond 1500 miles. Lower cold viscosity doesn't affect consumption that much on cold starts because it gets COLD here (single digits during the winter).

Just throwing that out there.

Late,
Trav

..and saying that your rings are seated within a few seconds is just as much misinformation. Sure if you are cutting limbs off a tree with a chainsaw you can go through them in a few seconds but when you are wearing in rings which are very hard against your cylinder wall that are suppose to be resistant to wear you are going to "seat" in somewhat but definately not fully. You are basically machining materials which are resistant to wear and it doesn't take seconds. Show me ONE profesional racing team that races a car after a few seconds of break in.... not qualifying but a full race.

I agree with you that there is a lot of misinformation in this thread but going to the other extreme doesn't help.... there is enough exageration going on here. There are a hand full of motors that do suffer from oil consumption - just like any other manufacture.

For the record my oil consumption has significantly reduced in 15,000Km...

Off topic but my car just turned 14k miles and with the 2500 miles on it since the last change, looks like it has used less than 1mm of oil off the stick.

Seems pretty good to me... *whew*

Any engine with plateau honed cylinder walls and pre-lapped piston rings - all of which have been properly cleaned before assembly - is essentially broken in the second you fire it up. As soon as the engine is flushed of whatever residual loose metal that was still present, it's ready to go. I can point you in the direction of hundreds of drag racing teams that break in their engines for the first time with full-out quarter mile passes. This is even the case for multi-thousand-horsepower top fuel engines. In fact, it's quite essential that such engines get run full-out very soon after they are fired up for the first time.

The wear-in items you have to be concerned about during break-in of a properly prepared race engine do not include the piston rings and cylinder walls. (think more of camshafts, oil pumps, and other machined parts that have high-load contact with other metal components which do not use bearings but only a hydrostatic layer of oil). You explained yourself how hard both of materials in the piston ring-to-cylinder wall interface are - it should be easy to understand why a few hundred or thousand miles of break in SHOULD NOT cause any kind of measurable wear on them when they're designed to last hundreds of thousands of miles :tiphat:

Engine break-in is predetermined by how an engine is assembled. Speaking of a modern OEM-built engine, you'll find they are built to not need any significant break-in period. I'll do a nice analysis of the next OEM shortblock I receive for a build... should be in a few weeks. I can guarantee you that the cylinder walls will be plateau honed and very clean, along with the piston rings being pre-lapped.

I had my short block installed 2 months ago, after 1200 miles I'm missing 2 quarts of oil so this short block thing is not the fix.
I'm taking her back on Friday to see what's going to happen next. I only have 11,000 miles and is been a nightmare. :mad: :mad: :mad:

Mine stopped "using" oil around the 5000 mile mark. I'm now at just about 9000 miles and it doesn't use any oil at all. These oil "usage" stories just seem to be bad luck to me.

Mine is just perfect.

Well I checked my dip stick and Its smack dead in the middle after 500 miles... I didn't check what was in there before I left the dealer but I'm going to check at 800 miles and if there is a significant drop

Does anyone know if there is an accurate cross-reference between mm's on the dipstick and quarts?

service bulletin: NTB10-090
vehicles biult before: JN1AZ4FH(*)AM303670/ 05-APR-2010
If your vehicle was built before than, then go get it checked out!
the new short block has fixed the problem, the oil scapper piston ring is a different design/material. ive done 3 of these short blocks since ive worked at nissan, and the oil scapper ring is a completely new design, hope this helps.

PS- the engine in break in mode will burn oil!! until 5000-7000 km's

So, I think that I may have an issue with oil consumption. At 12,400 miles now on the car, I am using about 1.25 to 1.50 quarts per 3,000 miles. I just started using the "measure the dipstick" method as specified in the TSB so I am not yet sure about my consumption against the chart in the TSB.

I am a bit concerned though about warranty. I have changed the oil 4 times so far -- the first change was performed at the dealer (at 2,000) and the other three by me. Nissan Ester was used the first two and Redline 5-30 the second two. Oh yes, I also change the filter at the same time as oil (K&N or PureOne). Is there going to be a problem, warranty-wise, because I performed my own oil changes?

I also have a GTM Motorsports 19 row oil cooler installed.

I appreciate your comments. Thanks and have a great day.

You don't have an oil consumption issue.

What leads you to this conclusion? I hope you are right.

Unless you have an oil leak due to your cooler, Nissan shouldn't give you a hard time for doing your own oil changes or having the cooler. Neither would explain oil consumption in the absence of leaks. If Nissan did hassle you, I'd suggest you start moving up the chain and call Nissan North America.

Normal consumption of oil is considered to be up to a quart per 1000 miles. Anything more than that is probably considered excessive. Your answer will be found in a phone call to Nissan or your dealer. You're going to get all kinds of "opinions" in here. Mine is just one of them.

if the car burns any oil, theres a problem. Who evers saying its fine for your car to burn oil is wrong and is giving out false information. The car should not burn anything! and if its burning up oil, where do u think its going? its getting by the oil scapper ring and burning up. For example - i put a short block in a g37s under warranty, the car was burning up 1 qrt per 1000-1500 ml's, we changed the motor and now its not consuming ANYTHING, hes been back 5 times and the oil is always at the top of the cross hatchs.

Your so wrong! Go talk to BMW and Audi Owners. I also own a 2008 TT 2.0 FSI Turbo and in the owners guide Audi will tell you this car, can use up to 1quart of oil per 1200 miles if the car is run hard.

My TT goes 10K miles on oli changes and I have to add 1quart of oil every 4500 miles or so.

Also go look at Lamborghini they also burn oil.

Just an update since this is still an active thread, after having my oil consumption issue diagnosed by my Nissan dealer, they replaced the short block (that didn't work) and so they replaced the long block (along with another short block...the entire engine) at 15K. Just passed 20K on my '09 and it's running beautifully!

Seems we still have some confusion around here. Let me try to clarify. the '09s had an oil consumption issue related to the seals not properly setting upon break-in. Oil consumption was in fact oil escape into the exhaust system. Nissan still won't say the volume they measure, I'm sure it's designed that way so you go to the dealer for servicing. There seem to be a lot of folks here that change their own oil and thus have no idea if there consumption rate is normal or if they too have the seal issue. If you are changing your own oil and not servicing with your Nissan dealer than there really isn't anything anybody can really tell you. Your oil consumption is going to be a product of the amount of heat you put your engine through. Where you drive, how you drive and distance/duration are all going to contribute. For some 1 quart per 5K may be fine, for others that track their car the distance will be much less.

The manufacturer is NOT the gospel. They implement those ideas to keep from having to fix their product and loose money. Go out and dump a qt of oil on the ground and then try to explain where that much would go from inside a sealed engine that doesn't leak or smoke in 1k miles. That is not normal and if it were normal, there would not be TSB's to cover oil consumption issues nor would dealerships be allowed to begin the process of oil consumption tests.

Someone asked what the mm chart represented as far as quarts and the answer is 8mm is approximately a touch more than 1/4 of a qt. The amount of space between H ~ L is 30mm, between the hash marks is 24mm.

Most people don't understand that dealerships would love to replace your engine as they get paid by Nissan for warranty work. When I had my engine replaced in my 04 G, I had no problems with getting a replacement block and that year vehicle DID NOT have a TSB to cover oil consumption.

Dealerships and their employee's get paid a lot less for warranty work, and that takes away from money they could be making doing non-warranty work, and if they have too much warranty work, it looks bad to corporate. They are not clamboring to replace your stuff. You just got lucky/found a great dealership that went to bat for you.

:iagree: You are absolutely correct - the dealer usually makes a lot more profit doing non-warranty work.

Anybody know if they provide a loaner car when replacing the short block?

yup...but don't expect a GTR. my dealer had Hertz office in the service dept. so i got a voucher for the rental. they still put a hold on your credit card, but the dealership gets the bill.

btw, since they did the short block and then the had to go back and replace the entire engine, not only do i get a loaner car, nissan north america reimbursed my loan payments (pro rata) for every day in the shop.

My dealership is telling me they only provide loaner cars for EXTENDED warranty service and not warranty service. They also say that I can rent a car and they can do their best to try and get Nissan USA to reimburse me. :shakes head:

That's because they rip off the consumer, but the car companies have their balls in a noose and they can't get away with it.

The average car mechanic bills 15 hours of labor for an 8 hour work day, with lots of smoke breaks.

Any auto mechanics in the house who can confirm, or want to argue?

Since many cars can and do, I'd say a 1/2 to 1 quart at the most every 6000 miles is reasonable, which is about what mine does, anything more I would call "should be better". But, unless it gets progressivley worse, the best thing to do is just top it up. I ran a Camaro SS that drank a quart every 3k miles, for 120k miles. It never changed. It ran fabulous. But, when I bought it at 15k miles and ran dino oil, it used 3X more oil. I switched to M1 and oil use went down dramatically. I would say try different oils if you have a lot of oil use.

Sure

1. I don't smoke.
2. Show me a dealer that I can rake in 15 hours a day and I'll go there now, if you think all we do is just spin one wrench and then flag a hour for it your quite wrong.
3. Your paying not only for the time it takes to do the job but also for the experience and training of the dealer tech. Not to mention your also paying for the right to come back and chew out both me the service advisor and the manager if everythings not right with your car.
4. I'm happy flagging 8 hours a day. If I make more then that great but I don't want to screw people in the process for it. When you don't come back because of a bad experience then that means we just lost a customer.

I work for BMW and have now for 3 years since graduating school, our cars tend to go anywhere from 12,15k between oil changes. In that time the engines use about 1.5 to 2qts that we top up when the customer comes in.

I'm not employed as a mechanic, but I have relatives who are or who own their own shop so I know that what you stated above is pure BS.

When a dealer performs warranty work the price for each job is set by the auto manufacturer - in other words, the profit margin that the dealer gets is limited. When the dealer does non-warranty work, they can essentially charge whatever they want.

It has nothing to do with double-charging or smoke breaks by the mechanics doing the work.

:gtfo2:

I am getting a new Short Block!

My 370z has 39k miles on it and developed a Tick in the engine, sounded like a bad lifter. It started after an oil change last week so I took it back to the dealer and had them replace the oil thinking maybe they did not put in the Ester Oil. I didn't think that would help but they have to go through all the motions. Went in today and had three services managers working with me. Then after an hour of testing and listen they came back and said we are going to replace the short block :eek:

My Z has consumed 1 quart of oil every 3,000 miles the entire time I have owned it. I passed it off as normally since I have read that it was not excessive enough to warrant a new motor, and just top'd it off when needed. But I have more miles then most 370z owners so thought I would post my experience here. My Z was built in late 2008, thats not a typo I was surprise when they told me the build date. They had service bulletin with a series of steps they needed to take to ensure that my issue was related to the short block. The dealer is ordering the parts right now. I will definitely post back when I have my new short block it should be in two weeks, hopefully! :tup:

Interesting. Did you get any idea of what that ticking sound actually is?

Congrats on new engine sblock! At 39000, I am going to assume they are pursuing warranty ($0.00 to you)? Will they give you another warranty period on the new short block?

Did they say what is wrong with the engine? How bad was the 'tick'?

My short block is going in next week. Having them install an oil cooler while they're in there. Yes I'm getting a loaner just like I did when they changed the cam sprockets and timing chains. Mine burns 2.5 quarts per every 1,400 miles. :shakes head:

Its sounds just like a lifter going bad 'tick' a 'tick' a 'tick' a 'tick', injectors have a quicker 't' 't' 't' 't' sound. Before I took it to the dealer I went to youtube and checked out a bunch of other (Maxima's, G35's, and 350z's) that had lifter or rod knock to get an idea of what the sound was. It definitely sounded more like a tick then a knock. So it did not sound like a throw rod. But when in 2 weeks of the first sign of the tick the noise started to get louder and making noise all the time at idle and 1800-3500 rpm.

It will be taken care of under warranty, which is great considering the cost of repairs. After the dealer drove my Z around a lot and listened to the noise they said without a doubt is coming for the bottom of the engine (Short Block). They discovered this by having it on the lift and reving to 1800rpm where the tick was very loud and easy to discover in the shop. If you are modded keep all your stock parts and return to stock if you have issues. They did not care about the after market exhaust at all, that surprised me and of course made me very happy knowing I can just keep it on there. They wanted all my oil history which is not a problem since I am one of those suckers that got every oil change at the dealer ever 3-4k miles.