Does anyone know if the VQ35 engine has been known to have oil consumption/burning issues?
Back in January I noticed my oil was low by over a quart. Added oil and brought it up to showing full on the dipstick. This would have been about 4 - 5 weeks ago.
About a week ago, the Pathy threw a CEL. I don't have a Scangauge or Ultragauge (yet) so I ignored it. Previous owner told me sometimes the CEL would go on with no change in performance, I figured it was a sensor or something, no big deal.
Last night, with the low fuel light on I decided to fill it with gas. As usual, I checked the oil (after it had been sitting on a level surface, engine shut off, for maybe 5 minutes.) Dip stick was once again BONE DRY.
So I drove to Wally World and bought 3 quarts of 5w30. Put in the first quart - still no oil on the dipstick. Put in the 2nd quart, now it was showing full.
Closed everything up (the 3rd quart is still sitting in the back of my Pathy.) Went to start - lo and behold, the CEL was off!
So, I'm asking here: Have there been any reports of excessive oil consumption with the 3.5? My old Montero with the 3.0 V6 would burn about 1 quart of oil every 1,000 miles but it also had noticeable blue smoke coming out of the exhaust.
I park in a driveway and if I was leaking oil anywhere, I would know it (actually I would catch hell from my wife because we just moved into a new-to-us home.) If it's not leaking, it must be burning, yes? I mean, what else could account for the oil loss? Keep in mind that the truck was full of oil as recently as January and by the end of February it was down by 2 quarts!
I should point out that through all of this, every aspect of performance, power, fuel economy, etc, has been completely unchanged. MPG in mixed city and urban highway driving remains around 17 - 17.5. That's running regular 85 octane E10. I did about 3 tanks of 91 octane with absolutely no difference in performance or MPG so I went back to regular.
What could excess oil consumption be a sign of? Again I have to point out, it's not "smoking" like a vehicle with bad piston rings would likely do (I've had a vehicle that did that, but it had over 200,000 miles on it, too!)
Thanks in advance!