Regular oil
 

So when I bought my Z 3500 miles ago the dealer offered me $19 oil changes for the life of the car at 5k intervals, I asked about synthetic and they told me would cost almost $75. So I'm getting ready for my 1st oil change and since the regular oils now are a lot better than back in the day I wonder if I should go ahead and do the $19 vs doing it myself with synthetic ...I know this topic has been beaten to death but I wonder if going their route is just as well since i wonder what has happened to all my previous rides that I took so much care in putting the best fluids.....i know some ppl even run regular gas ...opinions please .just opinions

Be prepared for a million different opinions - here's mine.

For only $19, as long as that also includes the filter, you'll be fine. They key is to do it regularly at the allowed 5k mile intervals. Europeans laugh at Americans for being brain washed into 3,000k mile oil changes. We love to baby our cars, me included, and oil changes are an easy way to do it.

Now I'm a Mobil 1 guy, but $19 for a full non-synthetic oil change for life would work for me.

Good luck! :tup:

Do the dino. You'll be fine.

I had been doing the Mobil 1 on all my previous rides, funny thing is that years later I found the owner of my '05 Acura TL and he said he does the oil changes a Jiffy with the regular stuff at 7k and uses regular gas and the car sounds like new 40k later weird uhh...but I knew the TL would be sold as I had my mind set for a Z and I plan to retire (in 5 years) with it and have it be my last car so I'm kind of torn, sure $19 and the fact that I don't have to get on the ground and unclip over 19 push pins and undo bolts , clean up the area in the garage, tools and then do the recycling thing makes it a no brainer but again the "baby" factor kicks in and the peace of mind that I'm letting it drain for over an hour vs minutes (leaving some of the old oil behind) makes me wonder if at the end is worth the $19 ...I have a little over 1k to decide thanks for the replies guys :tiphat:

You only need to remove four screws and pull the flap down and forward to access the oil drain plug and oil filter. Now your oil change just got a lot faster!

No need to remove 19 screws. The hardest part about changing the oil on this car is getting the car up off the ground, then waiting for the oil to drain.

For a DD that doesn't get driven hard, it's not that big of a deal as long as you change oil/filter often and use a high-quality lube. If you drive hard and/or in real hot weather, I'd go with a synthetic. YMMV

So according to the agreement w/ the dealer they were suppose to contact me via email a week or so ago to make an appointment for the "regular oil" change.
I received an email from Advance Auto that they were running a special Mobil 1 5qt jug and Mobil 1 filter for $29 and I went for it. did the change myself using the edge of the garage door frame and ramps as my driveway has an incline and it worked wonderfully. I also removed all clips and bolts because from previous experience the factory seems to have a guy with Popeye's arms as these are normally tighter than hell, sure enough this one was too.
I bought a 2013 leftover with 8 miles which means that the oil sat inside the engine for over a year. I should have thought of that and done this sooner because once the new fluid was in I could tell the difference in sound and performance. The reasons I like doing my own changes is that it gets me familiar with the car and I let the oil drain for hours as I do other things, something Jiffy or the dealer wont. try it and mark the pan as the oil starts to drip and you will see that at least a pint of dirty oil will continue to drain. OK kids now I'm thinking of doing a change of the transmission fluid as I did in my TL with GM's Synchromesh and made the shifter feel like medicated cotton...any suggestions before I hit the search button?...thanks a million

Refilling the transmission to the proper level is not something most DIYers can do correctly. Download the FSM for details.

Thanks for the info but I've been changing the tranny fluid in most of my previous rides and thank God i did it right, well thank God not really is the research I do and the time I allocate for these mods that I make it happen.
I'm a QA guy and finding defects is my job and I'm good at it, being anal doesn't hurt either. I'm researching right now if the GM synchromesh is compatible with the Nissan gears. I used it on all my Honda's and Acura's, this is my 1st Nissan so I'm not rushing into it..

I'm guessing all your previous trannies had some way for you to easily measure the level. It's not impossible for a weekend mechanic to refill the 370Z xmission properly (IIRC, there's even a DIY on this site), but you really need to read through the procedure in the FSM before jumping into it.

:confused: Changing the tranny fluid is easier than the engine oil. We are talking the 6MT, right? Did mine a couple weeks ago and the hardest parts were getting the car off the ground (car needs to be reasonably level) and then hand pumping in the new fluid in. You just fill it up until drips out of the fill hole.

BTW OP I just put Red Line MT-85 in my trans (ordered 4 qts to be safe and only used 3.25qts). No complaints on the fluid so far. I didn't notice a huge difference from the stock Nissan fluid as there is still an occasional notch in 1 and 2 when cold or when trying to shift fast. You may also want to check out the diff fluid as the initial diff drain was nasty.

Oops. For some reason, I thought we were talking about the 7AT. My bad. Yeah, the 6MT is just another tranny when it comes to changing the lube.

Yes 6mt is not as hard a the manual. I helped a friend do his automatic TL (mostly watched) and it took forever and he had to get some additional tools to flush his system and the mess left behind was not worth it :shakes head:

Not thread related, but "liked" for being a QA guy... So am I :tup: