Not trolling at all. Just making the point that if you are a competent mechanic, you dont forget to replace the drain plug. Also its common knowledge to most that if you keep maintenance records when changing your own oil, dealer wont deny warranty claims assuming you didn't do something to mechanically damage the engine, for example forgetting a drain plug lol. Just saying "dealer will deny warranty cuz you changed your own oil" is conjecture.

On an additional note. Why the HELL did the check oil light come on? I know it exists and is there because I see the outline for it etc.

Good question. It sounds like you've covered all your bases though. I don't honestly see any reason why they wouldn't cover it under warranty with all the cases of oil consumption out there.

Every thread I've read or come across including this one has every single finger pointed at extreme oil consumption. It's been about 5000 miles since my last change, I was about to do one coming up here really soon. Also, in that Killer Bee thread, he said he was using Mobil 1 oil. I am ALSO using Mobil 1. Maybe we need to inform other people that Mobil 1 is NOT a good choice for this very reason.

I was just playing devils advocate for the dealers point of view. They will use any excuse they can to deny a warranty claim. I was 16 years old when I made that mistake and I've been rebuilding cars and motorcycles for 25 years since then.

There was another thread on here about a member that was having issues getting his motor replaced under warranty after he ran it dry of oil. He claims the oil light did not come on, it was a similar situation as this thread. I'm not sure if he ever got it replaced for free or not, the last I saw in that thread was that he was taking it to Nissan corporate and that the dealer was not being helpful.

Just remember that when the oil light comes on that there is a loss of oil pressure, it's not an add oil light. The manual clearly states that you are to maintain proper oil level, not doing so can be considered neglect. So claiming the oil light did not come on won't help. The point about doing your own oil change was just that it will be another angle they will take to wiggle out of the claim. I was not saying that changing your own oil will invalidate the warranty in any way as long as you document it properly.

I wouldn't be surprised if they have an ecu code for loss of oil pressure stored as well.

Now that being said, I'm well aware of the service bulletin, and I believe Nissan should replace his motor. That's my opinion though, and technically they may br able to deny his claim if they want to.

Ive noticed that in previous threads too. For that reason alone I opted to use the Nissan ester oil just so that there is no question that I'm not doing 100% manufacturer recommendation.

I always used Redline ester 5w30 and barely had any oil consumption after 7k miles. Early on I was burning about 1.5 quarts every 3000 miles. Thats for another conversation though :)

Whatever happens, Mobil 1 will never touch this engine ever again.

Hmmm, interesting. I use Mobil 1 as well. Drove from Texas to Cali (1k miles) for Xmas and burned about a quart. I'm going to switch to Redline and see how it goes. If I'm still burning oil I'll take it in for a consumption test and go from there.

Use redline .. It's a true ester based oil ..

Let's not jump to conclusions, just take it in and I'm sure you will be taken care of.

I don't believe the oil brand was the culprit.

Hi All - I had a similar issue happen to me last week as well. Thursday evening coming home from work I noticed something was wrong with the car (I commute 45m each way). When I got home the idle was extremely rough and with the hood open you could hear a clanking noise inside the engine as well. Didn't quite sound like what happened here but still loud engine noises. My dad checked the oil and it was on the low side and we put in roughly .5 quarts and it brought the level up to the middle between L & H. I researched and found the TSB on here. I started it up Friday morning just to see if maybe it was because it was hot from when I got home. Car started up but quickly died after about 15 seconds. I called the dealership and they recommended I tow it which I did. Should hear back tomorrow on what the issue is (I assume the TSB).

Disclosure - Car is 2010 (turns 2 tomorrow) with 46k miles (it's a DD with 90m a day for work). Luckily this happened inside my 60k powertrain if my engine has to be replaced.

Does anyone who had this issue thought about getting rid of your car after the fix? I commute a lot and will be out of powertrain by August and can't risk a 7k engine replacement if it were to happen again.

After this I will simply just use Redline oil and check the oil levels a couple times a month. If I had known the VQ was notorious for having oil consumption issues then I would've checked the oil more often. I just assumed that because it was new that I could just do regular oil changes and be fine like every car I've owned in the past.

I use Royal Purple in my car. I wasn't down that much oil compared to you and others I see posting on this issue. Dealer only wanted 1 specific person to look at my car when I brought it in and that person hasn't been in yet but will tomorrow. They called Saturday and told me to bring my oil change records in tomorrow morning so I'll drop that off first thing in the morning. It seems like they know what's up and that this is going to be an engine replacement. Good luck to you! I think I'll be trading in for an Evo X once I get her back

Yeah be honest and tell them after you heard the noises you checked the oil level and it was bone dry--so you added oil.

So it looks like if you do your own oil change you are screwed as you won't have "Oil Change Records" Nice. I guess people who change their own oil can always pencil whip some up and hope that is ok? That is BS.

I never use a crush washer either. Never had a problem in over 20 years.

I have a spreadsheet put together with copies of my receipts for buying the oil. Hopefully that is sufficient...my dad believes that should be enough. I'll post tomorrow once I get word.

I'm hoping the dealership is as awesome as they have been since I've known them. Everything was always done correctly oil change wise. Ron knows that we did it correctly, minus the crush washer, but that doesn't matter because there were no leaks. I'm not going to pretend like I took it somewhere to get the oil changed and lie about it lol. It is just as simple as you said: engine all of a sudden made noises. oil level was gone, added new oil.

Sufficient for what? I'm confused.

Sufficient for the warranty work should I need a new short block assembly. Sorry, wasn't clear on that.

Oh I thought you were referring to my problems lol.

:) This wait since Friday morning is killing me...I just want to know already what the issue is and what the remedy will be.

Good luck with your engine dude. I hope the dealer works with you.

After reading this thread, I'm so surprised that there are so many Z owners out there that are using non-ester based oils in there Z's.

^ Well I doubt the brand of oil had anything to do with it. If he was 5qts low, I would say his piston rings were obviously shot. To bad OP didn't have a chance to pull some spark plugs.

You should have had a low oil warning light before it ever got that low.

Man... you're preaching to the choir. With Nissan making their computers as smart as they do it should've told me a long time ago. Not to mention the GTR is basically a computer on wheels.

Pretty sure there there's no "low oil level" light on the Z. Not many cars actually monitor the oil level itself.

There is a "low oil pressure" light, which Z's and every other car on the road has. That's usually the "you're f$&#@#" light. But yeah, no oil = no pressure. I'm curious too why that that light never came on for you. I would have thought that it would have lit up before (maybe just before) the engine started destroying itself. Would be a good question to ask the dealer's mechanics.

Hope the warranty claim works out for you. I bet it will. Good luck.

That was the last time you changed your oil? Last time you checked level? How many miles since that last oil change, like 5k?

Check this out. This is the oil consumption test Nissan does to see if you have a "no good" engine.

Miles.................mm from H (dipstick)
1001-1500 >= 10mm
1501-2000 >= 13mm
2001-2500 >= 16mm
2501-3000 >= 19mm
3001-3500 >= 22mm

There are 30mm from L to H on the Oil dipstick. From reading other threads it apparently takes about 2qts to fill from L to H. Continuing the math above:

3501-4000 >=25mm
4001-4500 >=28mm
4501-5000 >=31mm

Based on the table above, a bad engine is burning through about 2qts of oil in 5000miles. What is weird to me is that if your car was indeed consuming oil, it burnt more than twice what a bad engine burns..

I just went and checked mine, I am at 5000miles since last oil change, I am 9mm below H mark.


.
***This is just me making assumptions from what I read, from what Nissan says and from what I see on my car. Do take it with a grain of salt.***


.

Yeah I was right at about 5k. I change my oil every 5k so I was about to get an oil change very soon before all of this.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

Even if I were at 7 or 8000 miles into an oil change it still should not consume 5 quarts of oil.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

No it shouldn't but its not on Nissan's chart and its not their recommended oil change interval. I personally don't go over 5000.

A low mileage engine shouldn't really be burning any oil at all, maybe half a qt each oil change would be acceptable. My Explorer had 170k miles on it and didn't burn a drop of oil . Same thing with my Tacoma, which has 69k miles. What do you think Ron, think you may have consumption issues?

Like I said, I drove 1k miles in 16 hours... drove it pretty dang hard only stopping for gas, and I burned through a qt. I think I just may go into the dealership and get the test done.

*sorry to get off topic. Let us know OP what the stealership tells you.

L -> H on the stick isn't 2 qts, it's more like about 1.

Per Nissan, the "Severe duty" schedule is every 3,750 miles. "Normal duty" is every 7,500 miles. While I think it's generally agreed upon that the smart money is on 3,750 intervals, 5k is still well within the realm of what should be acceptable. Especially since the OP is running synthetic.

I don't disagree that had he changed it at 3,750 he might have been alerted that he was running low before it was too late. But that's why the car has a dipstick....

As Ron asked above, I'm curious as to when the OP last checked the oil level. To the OP, did you check it immediately after your last oil change to confirm that the level was correct? That is a critically important bit of info here.

If you check it like every few weeks and it was fine a week or two ago, then that would seem to point to some kind of catastrophic failure and not something you did. But as others have said, I can't imagine that wouldn't have manifested itself in the fore-mentioned oil slicks or clouds of smoke.

But if you haven't ever checked the oil level since you changed it X-months ago, then that opens up the possibility that the problem was some kind of slow leak or accidental negligence on your part.

I've got a buddy who has changed his own oil for years, and one time he just forgot to put the drain plug back in. Got distracted with a phone call or something in the middle of the change. Put in 5 quarts, then checked the disptick to find it dry. So he put in another quart a little bit at a time. Still dry. WTF. Then it dawned on him. He'd just poured 6 quarts of brand new oil straight through the engine into his to-be-recycled pan. Oops. Not saying you did this, but sometimes things happen. Had he not checked the oil to confirm the level after the change, he very likely could have driven off with it empty.

Well, maintenance mistakes can definitely happen (I've caught myself on a few before, luckily before driving off in the car), but I don't think this is likely to be a case where the refill never happened. It's been 5K miles since that last change. If the drain plug were left off, the engine would've been making ugly noises and failing long before the 5K mark. With a drain and no refill the remaining oil won't even reach the pump pickup, you'd just be riding on the film left from the old oil. For that matter it would've definitely triggered a low oil pressure dummy light on the first drive, and VVEL wouldn't have functioned without the oil pressure either.

Oh yeah, totally. Not implying that the OP forgot about the drain plug. Just an anecdote that $#^% happens sometimes.

If he did forget the plug, then Mobile 1 might be interested in buying the engine as a marketing piece, considering that it would have run almost 5k miles before blowing up on the film leftover from the previous Mobile 1 oil. That'd be impressive. :tup: ;)

How much...approximately a basketball court?




Sorry, couldnt resist :-p

Yep- from the L to H it should be approx. 1 quart.

No, Ron and I did the oil change together. We MADE SURE the the oil drain bolt was in there. We had no crush washer at the time so we went to Advanced and bought the highest temp thread locker so that sucker would not leak or come out. After unscrewing it the other day it was evident that it was on there pretty good and did not leak a single drop. It took quite a bit of effort to break the bolt. There were never ever any signs of oil anywhere. This car has been 5-6000 miles on Mobil 1 Synthetic 7000 Extended Mileage oil. So everything that we did was correct.

The dealership asked for my oil change records and I of course told them I did it personally.

There's only 2 things I can think of that actually caused this.

1. There is a hole in the side of the engine (100% unlikely)
2. It burns oil like a mofo

I too dropped off my oil service records this morning. The mechanic at the front desk who I have been dealing with the whole time looked it over (copies of receipts as well as a spreadsheet for maintenance). Said that it should be good for their purposes. I should hear something later today on what the status is. Car still has yet to move but it was dying when I started it up so it's possible they may have run a diagnostic on it right in the parking spot since they probably couldn't even drive it into the garage.


BTW, my car is bone stock with just K&N Air filters. Just clear bra & tints on top of that...and I do ALL highway driving, hence why I'm at 46k miles and it's 2 years old today :)