Help Please my Navara is Burning oil.

[RichardG]

Hi Guys

I recently bought an excellent condition 2006 Nissan Navara D/C 4.0 V6 Auto 4x4
with 145 00km on the clock with a full service history with Nissan up to 120 000km, i got the vehicle at a good price and immediately took it to my trusted private mechanic who gave it a full service and gave it the all clear telling me it was in incredible condition for an 8 year old car. the car has never had a tow bar fitted to it as far as i can see and also has no rubberizing and only minimal year to the paint in the buck so i'm convinced it was used more as a family vehicle then for any thing else, i'm very happy with the vehicle and it drives incredibly well how ever it seems to be using way to much oil. i have checked every where for leaks and cant find any oil at all on the underbelly, but at first it was using some where is the region of 3L in 1500km which is crazy. i then decided it must be a rings issue (strange on a car with such low mileage) but there is little to no loss of compression i still have tons of power and the motor runs and smooth as a Swiss watch, with no missing and very little vibration. the vehicle also does not smoke at idle but if i rev it to 2500RPM and then release the accelerator it spits plooms of blue grey smoke which smells like the Castrol magnetic (NISSAN RECOMMENDED) that its currently running. (its burning oil.) i know that the vehicle stood for quite a while at the dealership as i work there 120 days or so without being moved and I began to do research i hear of vehicle which stood a while getting old oil and rust gumming up the rings and making them stick. i then hit each cylinder with Wynns combustion stabilizer as it claims to free stick rings and the problem is way better, it only smokes at 3500 RPM when i release the throttle and seems to be using less oil, i also got a but of soot coming from the exhaust after using the Wynns stuff but that has stopped too now, what i want to ask is has any one had any success cutting down oil consumption on their Navara's with out doing an engine rebuild as Nissan wants R80 000 for the pleasure of doing mine, and secondly can i consider running a slightly thicker oil such as a 20w 50 to cut down consumption. i live in south Africa and temperatures range between -5 in winter to 40 degress C in the height of summer, ive also read reports of similar trouble on BMW's using castrol magnitic and being left to stand for too long, so i wouldnt mind trying a different brand if it will help. please if any one has a thought i would love to know.... thanks guys.

 

[Aussie Frontier]

Not sure if Magnetic is synthetic or not. I run full synthetic in mine and have no issues burning oil.I have owned it since new and run full synthetic since the second oil change at 5000km.I also run only 98 octane fuel

 

[RichardG]

As far as i know Castrol Magnetic is a part synthetic, which basically means its a mineral oil with additives added to it, apparently if these are left to long in your motor without running the motor they can separate out and cause issues, i not really to sure how ever, all that i am sure about is that the wins compression stabilizer did help leading me to believe that its not worn rings as it would not have done a thing if they were gone, what brand of oil are you using, the reason for wanting to use 20w 40 is that its slightly thicker and operating temperature and may be less prone to squeezing past the rings. as far as i have seen the full synthetic oils are even thinner then the 15w 40 magnetic, and will probably burn up the expensive synthetic stuff even faster... but i'm guessing thanks for your response

 

[bods]

Not sure if Magnetic is synthetic or not. I run full synthetic in mine and have no issues burning oil.I have owned it since new and run full synthetic since the second oil change at 5000km.I also run only 98 octane fuel

Magnatec is semi synthetic. I use the diesel version in my d22 and have no problems...

As for yours not using any, it probably hasn't sat around not moving for 4 months either, hahahahah


As far as the problem goes, next oil change you could try using an oil flush to see if that can get rid of the crap that is left in there. If you can afford to, maybe do 2 oil changes close together with oil flush in there both times to see if that cleans it out....

 

[RichardG]

Ill be sure to give it a try and ill post if i have any further success, any thing is more affordable then an engine rebuild, and the engine runs so well it seems a shame to go messing with it, i'm also gonna give each cylinders another dose of Wynns as so far its been the only thing to give it any sort of marked improvement. it really seems to be just me with this problem as i cant find any one else with this issue on the Petrol Navara on this site or elsewhere.

 

[bods]

I'm also wondering if the pcv system is worth looking at. If the valve is faulty it could be letting too much blow by back into the inlet manifold, may be worth removing the piping up to the throttle body and seeing what the inside of the manifold looks like...

 

[RichardG]

I removed the intake manifold in order to get the coils and spark plugs out for the Wynns treatment on the right hand bank, whole intake system looks clean also check to see if there was oil in the breather pipe and there seems to be very little if any, i also ran the engine without the oil filler cap on and my hand over the oil filler, and got my dad to rev it up to 3500 RPM and there seems to be very little blow by, so i'm pretty convinced the compression rings are ok and its either the oil scraper rings or some thing else, i will check the rest of the piping on the intake system and the vacuum system to the brake boosters for oil and see if some of the oil is going there as i seem to be getting very little smoke for how much oil its still using in my opinion, does any one think i could damage the motor further by trying some thicker grade oil such as a Shell Havalin 20w50, i have read some reports of oil pump failure on Navara's but it only seems to be an issue on the 2.5 Diesel.

 

[bods]

Fait enough. If the intake was fairly clean downstream of the throttle body I'd be fairly convinced there's no excess oil getting in there...I reckon you might be right with oil control rings. There shouldn't be any issues using a thicker grade oil. You wouldn't expect to have to with such low km, but if it has been sitting I guess you have to... I'd try the oil system flush first and see if that helps..

 

[RichardG]

Thanks for the advice ill give an oil system a flush and try a slightly thicker grade oil and see what happens, i think that may be because its an auto and a 4.0 V6 the previous owner never gave the motor any real work to do, no towing (no tow-bar ever fitted according to the previous owner, and minimal load carrying, (quad bike mainly) the motor easily works to do most jobs at under 2500RPM and i'm sure it was driven carefully to save fuel, may be the a long time of lazy use and then the long time standing has some thing to do with it, after i change the oil i going to fit a tow-bar and drag my 1.5 ton boat around for a couple hundred km's and give it some real work to do, hopefully it will break up some of the carbon and free up the rings. thanks for the advice its all very welcome

 

[bods]

That's the only downside with autos. It is hard to get them under a decent load, unless they have the manual mode that won't change gear by itself... they just kick the box down to get the revs and power up. Might be worth taking it out away from the city and giving it a few boot fulls on the open road too.... just keep it in second or third gear and stand on it...

 

[Aussie Frontier]

Basically I think you need to awaken the beast and give it some"Drive it like you stole it" type driving. I run mine on 98 octane and give it some stick every tank to close to redline through as many gears as I can get away with.
Being an auto you can always play Drag racer. Hold it on the foot brake and slowly bring up the revs till you feel it really starting to want to go. Slide foot off brake and put the accelerator to the floor and hang on it will get up and go quick smart.Its called stalling up the convertor. Dont go overboard as it puts a lot of heat into the transmission playing this game but it will load up the engine .
Could just be it needs a good flogging to deglaze the bores as large doses of right foot

 

[RichardG]

Hi Guys just an update, on the status of My NAV, i changed the oil to a 20w 50 grade mineral oil by Caltex (Havilin) and after draining the the old oil i was surprised at just how thin the Castrol Magnetic 15w 40 actually is, sort of the same consistency as dirty paraffin, and it all drained out in about 10 minutes (cold) i then filled her up with the Havilin which looks much thicker, and turned the motor over a few times without allowing her to actually start, just to make sure the oil had filled up the bearings, and oil filter and then ran her till warm and went for a drive, the motor seems a bit smoother especially on start up and seems to have even more power, i did take your advice and gave her a bit of hard acceleration, gunning it at each robot, but still have only gotten her to about 4500 before i run out of road or confidence in my stopping ability. i haven't tried the drag racing trick yet, as i'm nervous getting the transmission very hot until i have saved up and replaced the transmission fluid as i have no idea when/if it was last changed, however i am happy to report that i have not yet seen a noticeable drop in the oil level on the dipstick in the 400km i have done so far, so i'm feeling confident that i have reduced if not cured the oil burning problem.... hold thumbs thanks for your helpful responses guys

 

[Navmania]

The only time I have ever had trouble with any engine is when it has been filled with castrol oil. I have found that if you remove the oil cap and it smells burnt then it is castrol oil in there. I have had dealers that use it in their service department and I will supply my own oil that's how much I don't like it. I had I 351 Cleveland throw a rod using GTX2 and when I pulled the engine down the oil had turned to sludge like grease in the engine.
Cheers.

 

[Rumpig]

Modern oils for modern engines, older, thicker mineral oils for older engines. ZD30s and 351s are old engines.

 

[RichardG]

Sho that's pretty shocking, i will be sure not to use it again, the only reason it was in there in the first place is that it is the recommended oil according to Nissan, but that's probably only due to some sort of deal between Nissan and Castrol, i'm much happier now and my exhaust doesn't have that distinctive magnetic smell any more, any ways i'm loving my Navara now, its one bad *** bakkie!!!!!

 

[RichardG]

Hi Rumpig as far as i know, Castrol GTX 2 is a thick 20w 50 multigrade mineral oil designed for old/high mileage engines? but besides that when i had my problem i stumbled across some reports of brand new/ low mileage BMW's that were running Castrol Magnetic having the same sticky oil control rings problem, that's what prompted me to change my oil in the first place, from what they were explaining, was that the cars were standing without running much at the dealerships, and the Castrol magnetic oil was separating out from the additives in it, and these additives are what gums up the rings, ill see if i can find the article again and post it, but i'm not here to knock the Castrol brand, all i can say is i feel much happier about the way my Navara petrol is running since i changed out.

 

[sparra04]

The only time I have ever had trouble with any engine is when it has been filled with castrol oil. I have found that if you remove the oil cap and it smells burnt then it is castrol oil in there. I have had dealers that use it in their service department and I will supply my own oil that's how much I don't like it. I had I 351 Cleveland throw a rod using GTX2 and when I pulled the engine down the oil had turned to sludge like grease in the engine.
Cheers.

We stopped running castrol in our race car after similar issues
We also noticed a larger than normall oil pressure drop at high temps with castrol
I wont use it in any car
Cheers

 

[ryzan]

Digging up an old thread, but have you checked your cats to see if they're still in one piece? Seems that some of the vq engines have issues with their extended valve overlap, designed to draw some of the exhaust gas back in to the cylinder as part of the egr or something. When the cats start to disintegrate and crumble parts of them can be drawn in to the combustion chamber and score the bores. Using a thicker engine oil would help to cover this up. Just a suggestion of something you might want to look in to.

 

[raptorthumper]

Oil consumption at part throttle is valve stem seals. It wont be scraper rings.

the vehicle also does not smoke at idle but if i rev it to 2500RPM and then release the accelerator it spits plooms of blue grey smoke which smells like the Castrol magnetic (NISSAN RECOMMENDED) that its currently running. (its burning oil.) .

These are classic symptons of oil being pulled into inlet around valve stems when there is high inlet manifold vaccumn (petrol engine). Seals are cheap, its just labour.


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[raptorthumper]

have a read of this

http://www.federalmogulmp.com/en-US/Technical/Documents/Valve Stem Seal Facts.pdf



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