nnicmaddox

Howdy folks. I recently posted about my oil pressure gauge reading looking low in my '03 350z. The oil level on the dipstick looked to be at the halfway point (a little dark but probably nothing). I learned that my issue was most likely going to be that my oil pressure sending unit had gone bad. Went to napa auto parts, bought a stupidly overpriced oil pressure testing kit, and went back home to test my oil pressure. After 3 hours of struggling with an extremely corroded bolt, for fear of breaking something in a fit of rage, I put my undertray back on and didn't worry about it until the weekend. After starting my car up to move it into the garage Saturday morning, I noticed it sounded horrible. Like a school bus at idle. I immediately moved it to a level ground (the garage) and the engine sounded slightly better. At this point, I was pretty concerned. I said screw this, I'm just going to do an oil change and see what happens. (I used Castrol Edge 5W-30 with a K&N filter) As I was draining the oil out, I noticed it was coming out slowly. I mean REALLY slowly. I let it drain out for nearly 30 minutes, and had realized that my car, my beautiful z, had barely 1 quart of oil in it. Changed the oil and filter, and the oil pressure jumped right back up to where it is supposed to be immediately.

Assuming my oil isn't being siphoned out by a magical oil fairy, its safe to assume that i'm burning oil pretty rapidly. (changed my oil 2000 miles before the drop in oil pressure) I don't smell any oil burning out of the exhaust or from the engine bay. The only issues I can think of would be worn piston rings or valve seals, especially because of how fast it burned four quarts of full synthetic oil. Damn this dipstick in the DE engines. Does anyone have any advice on where I should go from here or how much damage was done? Or possibly even tips on how to read this dipstick any better? Anything helps.