I put about 1000 miles since the last oil change and got this warning message about low oil.
Did you check the oil level right after the oil change? On the same spot? Under the same conditions? Otherwise, you'll never know if your car is consuming oil, and if so, how much. Could have been low to begin with. Most auto manufacturers say 1-qt per 1K miles, but that's BS. At that level, something is not right with your engine. What you need to do now, is monitor oil consumption the proper way.
On this car, the proper way to be absolutely consistent is to check oil level when COLD. I have no idea why Nissan says hot (after 5 min) on the manual; makes zero sense on a dry-sump car. I checked it myself multiple times, waiting different intervals (including cold), and it always was within 1mm. But if oil is too hot, or you check it too soon, that could add another millimeter maybe, making the process a little inconsistent. You CANNOT check oil level cold on a dry-sump engine, but on this car, it's the most consistent way. Then check it ALWAYS AT THE SAME
FLAT SPOT. If you do those 2 things, you'd always know very precisely how much oil your engine is consuming. Or leaking, or whatever the case might be. Also keep in mind some oil could be reaching the engine via the PCV valve, especially if car is tuned. But maybe even if it isn't, and it's driven hard. I'm not going to bother with a catch can on my stock car, but am curious if a stock engine run hard has that problem or not.
Finally, since I don't track the car, I'm running oil level to the full mark. Five quarts is already borderline acceptable for a twin-turbo 545HP engine IMO, to run even less, as Nissan recommends for 'performance', which after many weeks of research, I found it to mean tracking. I like to run the car hard in the corners, not run the engine consistently hard, so definitely want the higher oil level to prevent cavitation (or worse, oil starvation). So far in 630 miles, including high-rpm cruising, zero oil consumption. But have yet to run the engine hard. Hope I got a good engine. It's an all-#2 engine, and was built by the same dude that built the Nismo engine shown on many videos
.
OP, just top off your engine (yes, that 0/40 fully synthetic oil is perfectly fine, and probably better than M1 due to being group-IV vs III), and monitor oil consumption for the next 1K miles, and let us know. Being an '09, you're out of any warranty, but at least you'll know if you have a potential issue or not. Good luck.
