my car has been pinging under load ever since I bought it one year ago .. I put in 10w40 for the Summer, recently installed a catch can and also ran a treatment of BG44K through it .. I noticed that the ping was becoming less frequent, lasting a REALLY short time and sometimes not at all .. now that Fall and Winter are coming (and because I was due for my oil change) I had to change the oil .. I decided to put in 5w30 because I was worried a thicker oil would give me issues during the Winter (I live in North Jersey) .. NOW, the engine is louder, the ping is a LOT more frequent, lasts LONGER and is driving me insane .. COULD the thinner oil be causing/amplifying the pinging noise ?? I don't want to run synthetic in my car and can't find a conventional 5w40 .. should I put a thicker oil in ?? what would be the safest thickness to run during the winter and worse case scenario how would I go about switching to 5w40 synthetic from conventional ?? my car just hit 42,000 and has been on regular oil forever I don't want to ruin things but anything to get this ping to go away would help like you wouldn't believe ..

 

just called Infiniti to make sure me changing to synthetic and changing the weight wouldn't void my warranty .. it won't LOL (I'm paranoid) .. soo .. what would everyone recommend as far as a synthetic for Winter and brand ?? would 10w40 synthetic be too heavy for Winter even though the lowest it usually gets here is like 20-30 max or would w 5w40 or 10w30 be best ?? I need the oil to be as thick as possible without it giving me issues because the thicker oil seems to be shutting things up and my ping with the 10w40 was barely noticable .. damn I'm a noob lol .. thanks

 

Bring that thing back to your dealer and have them fix it.

 

I got mine with 51k miles,and have run 5w30 Mobil synthetic ever since (89000miles now)no issues

 

I've been going back and forth to them for the whole year I've owned this lol .. at first, I had the OC issue .. they gave me a new motor and sent me on my way .. now, I don't consume oil but went in again and they told me something was wrong with my transmission .. they replaced THAT .. they've tried their "special" carbon/induction cleaning thing that cost me over $100 dollars and that did nothing .. basically, he finally took out the manual and showed me the page that says some pinging is normal .. that's when I gave up on the dealer .. now I have colder spark plugs and an oil catch can .. I'm thinking I just need to stay on thicker oil so I'm probably going to say eff it and just get a synthetic 10w40 this week and call it a day with that nonsense .. maybe I'll even go back to them for their induction cleaning now that the catch can is there and the carbon and crap won't come back soo easily or at all .. but as far as the dealer goes, they've failed me NUMEROUS times and it's more than two different dealers so I'm pretty much done with Nissan/Infiniti after this car is paid off

 

just curious .. what would everyone recommend I switch to .. ?? the winters here don't get too crazy and I've heard the newer oils (especially synthetic) can handle much colder temperatures than the regular oils used too .. I also heard synthetic oils may help the engine run cooler .. who knows though BUT, which .. ??

1. 5w40
2. 10w40
3. 0w30
4. 0w40

also, would Mobil 1 be fine ?? I plan on sticking with the synthetic and changing every 3,700 miles or so (since I'm used to that) .. thanks

 

I use Castrol Syntec 0W-30 (German blend) all year around. Though it is technically a 0W-30 it has been said that it is actually comparable to most 5W-30's when at normal operating temperatures. There is a huge thread about what oil to use for the VQ on my350z.com

But about your pinging...I experience this sometimes too especially after installing test pipes and even with my tune it still happens. Did running colder spark plugs alleviate the issue at all? Mine seems to be random and off and on only at WOT as well. Still trying to figure it out but in the mean time I just run a less aggressive map where the pinging is much less frequent. What type of mods do you have?

 

OP, the pinging you here may not have anything to do with your oil weight. Most pinging occurs for the following reasons:

1) timing is too advanced for the octane gas being used

2) engine becomes to hot (check your coolant and cooling system) or is under extreme pressure for too long

3) octane rating of your gas is too low (stay within the 90-93 range if possible)

4) under load, engines will often ping

5) clogged EGR-- the exhaust gas recirculation system (EGR) is designed to reduce pinging. It adds a small amount of exhaust gas to the air-to-fuel mixture before it enters the combustion process, thereby limiting the peak combustion chamber temperature.

6) sometimes the MAF or 02 sensor becomes contaminated and causes the airflow to be slightly off

There are probably other reasons, but these are the most common I could think of off the top of my head.

Good luck and I hope this helps.

 

^^ Damn, a chick that knows her shit

 

Now if we could just transfer child birth to the men!!

 

LOL...ummmm, no thanks

 

........That would be one way to reduce world population!
Living on the right coast you should be using 5W/30 Mobil 1 Synthetic along with quality filters. The weight of oil you're using as nothing to do with the ping you experience, and it's not normal!
Gary

 

yeah, I agree it's not normal .. but there's no coincidence that me going from 10w40 to 5w30 and hearing ping a LOT more and louder .. I don't see how .. I've even mentioned to my dealer about retarding the timing 2 degrees like they do in other dealerships and he said they "don't touch the timing on these cars" so he was no help to me .. I notice with my car and all of my friends the engine just throws off SOO much heat it's a little insane .. I have only ever put 93 octane in this car from day one (Shell and BP only) .. it only happens when the car is warmed up-hot .. if I start driving after it's been sitting over night, the first 20 minutes of driving are completely PING FREE no matter what load I put it in, what gear I'm in, hill or anything (never makes the noise) .. I guess I'll look further into the timing, EGR, coolant and MAF but aside from that I'm lost with this car and the noise .. colder plugs, thicker oil and the catch can have helped dramatically but I'm still convinced the oil that was going from my PCV into the plenum was somehow lowering the octane of my gas and possibly even causing carbon build up or nasty **** somewhere .. I have a 30K+ ping machine .. it's just BS .. this car has literally been a nightmare on many occasions and that's coming from someone who used to have a turbo hatchback civic that always needed fixing ..

just a question .. how would I check the EGR and where exactly is it ?? I'll look into the coolant and maybe even have the dealer do a flush to put in new ..