This is my 7th Z, but my first 350 so let me give a little background.

I got the Z at the beginning of December, and by December 31st I had noticed that my oil pressure had gone down and it seemed my valves were really loud under certain driving conditions, so I took it to the Nissan dealership and had them do an oil change.

Then I took the car to CarMax (where I purchased it from) for some minor things they said they would cover under their 30 day warranty. I mentioned the whole oil situation to them, and they seemed to be really worried about it (they even refunded me for the oil change). They looked all around for oil leaks and found none, but put it in their notes and said if I lose oil pressure again to let them know.

So here we are a month later, I'm still 1000 miles out from my next oil change but suddenly this is happening again. If I cut a corner hard or brake hard the oil warning light comes on, and my oil pressure gauge is really low. Also the SES light came on and I can hear those valves again.

I just put a quart of oil in it, and I have a bluetooth OBD2 dongle and I hooked it up and saw that the code is P0021 "Camshaft variable timing control".

I've read through other threads regarding this code but they seem to be from people who had recently done after market work, which I haven't done. I simply seem to be losing oil (though there's none in the driveway).

Any feedback would be appreciated. I'd like to be able to go back to CarMax on Monday armed with some good directions.

tldr: Low oil pressure and P0021 code. What's up?

 

The '06 rev up de engine is well known for consuming oil, call a Nissan dealer.
0021 is cam timing, is it not? You might have a bad solenoid or cam phaser thingy letting your oil pressure go? I'll bet the noise is your timing chain, not the valves. The timing chain needs pressure to stay tight.

 

Google 350z oil consumption. I think it was the 2006 that had that issue.

 

2006 Mt only had the oil consumption problems. Is yours auto or mt?

 

It's an 06 MT.... this isn't sounding good....

 

Your P0021 is relevant to the intake timing control but no doubt you know this already so I'm probably not giving you information you do not already know. This is probably due to your excess oil consumption.

 

Nissan replaced my 06 motor at 20,000 miles for oil consumption under warranty thank God. I now have 115,000 and it has been a very dependable car.

 

oil consumption.. gonna have to keep oil in the car.. or try to get carmax to take it back

 

Theres a few places behind the timing cover that can leak internally causing pressure drops and that code, dealer is not being thorough.