2003 Infiniti FX45 Oil

[skytower31]

Need some suggestions on the oil to run in my recently purchase 2003 Infiniti FX45. It has 24k miles on the clock so far and I plan on putting about 20k per year on it. Daily driving in stop and go with a few long trips per year. I don't mind doing frequent oil changes (3000 miles, etc) but extended changes are an option as well.

I've been hearing alot about the 15k changes on Amsoil and alot of the guy on the FX forum run their 5w30 for those 15k/1year intervals. I just have a tough time leaving oil in my engine for 15k miles!

I also really like the K&N brand oil filters. They seem to filter well without a ton of pressure. Can these stand up to 15k miles of filtering?

Anyone have experience with these high tech VK45DE 4.5L V8s?

Thanks for any help/suggestions!

 

[ccs v2.0]

You first determination needs to be if you have one of the "higher than normal oil consumption" VK variants (a qt in less than 1k miles, otherwise known as normal by the stealer). That should dictate the oil and the OCI.

 

[buster]

Amsoil and Mobil 1 0w-40 are good options for this engine. Mobil 1 0w-40 supposedly does well in this vehicle.

 

[spOILEDrotten]

My brother has a Titan with a VK56DE, which is actually an evolution of the engine that you have. If you check out TitanTalk or ClubTitan, just about every synthetic 5w30 has done well. Castrol Syntec 0w30 has done extremely positive things as well.

To be honest, a couple of people have had bad results with the 0w40, but others have excelled. His truck has 40,000 and consumes nothing.

 

[skytower31]

Welp did a change last weekend (first change since owning it). Put 7 quarts of Mobil 1 5w30 in there. Going to change it at 3k miles and see how it looks (dirty and comsumption wise) to get a baseline.

 

[k1xv]

We have one in the family. We noticed what we thought was high oil consumption, maybe a quart every 1200 miles or so. At about 33K miles the dealer installed a factory new short block under warranty. The new one seems to consume oil too, but not quite as fast. We are now up to 49K miles on the car.

From poking around Infiniti enthusiast web sites, I have learned that this engine is set up for high revs, and in the ring department some oil control was sacrificed for low friction. We have decided to live with a little oil consumption. It does not seem to hurt anything.