I bought a used 06 6MT coupe a few months ago. It had 75k miles at the time. No extended warranty. No problems so far.

But I got to reading about oil consumption issues and oil in the spark plug tubes and all that. I've put about 2k miles on it and the oil level is staying the same. I have not checked the plug tubes but I'll do it at some point.

It then dawned on me that the engine and engine bay look really clean for a car this old. The rest of the car looks pretty good too but it seems like it looks better under the hood. I've also noticed that there are places in the engine bay where some of the plastic clips that hold trim and such are missing.

Putting all that together I began to wonder if maybe this car had had its original engine replaced. I got no documentation with this car but the CarFax showed all (or most) proper maintenance done at the dealership. The salesman mentioned a new clutch. They also tried to tack on $2300 to the price for work they'd done to the car before I bought it.....of course I didn't pay any of that.

So how do you know if a used coupe had an OC issue and got a new engine. I could call the dealership but frankly, they were pretty disappointing to deal with. Would a replacement engine have a different VIN on it?

 

no telling if nobody knows or no records. if it was in for OC under warranty and had an engine replaced under warranty then itll be in the records at an infiniti dealership.

 

+1 Dealership should have records so call them and find out.
P.S What is an avg amount of oil to consume within the 3000 mile range? Sorry for thread jack

 

Ask for copies of all records for your vehicles vin.

 

I don't think an engine that is functioning properly should lose any measurable amount of oil in 3k miles. None of my other vehicles ever have.

Anyway, this care has had 2 owners and I don't know what dealership it was originally purchased from. I may call the dealership and see what they can do for me records wise.

Seems to me that engine blocks have VINs on them. So if there is a diffeent block from the original then there should be a VIN mismatch.

 

you can go to any dealer for the history.

 

Thanks. I'll give it a try.

 

maybe it was boosted and the person dropped the motor to install/ uninstall and decided to clean up a bit?

 

You're right, it may have just been cleaned up when the dealer 'detailed' it for sale. It does not look like a car that was meticuoulsly cared for by the owners but the dealer may have steam cleaned the bay.

 

I always thought the CARFAX shows the original Dealer were the car was first sold at.

 

It did. They had a link to if from their website, or Auto Trader but like a dope I forgot to print it out. And I'm to cheap to spend $15 on a new one since this one did not show a wreck and it had definitely been wrecked.

Anyway, I guess if it isn't burning oil and the plug tubes are clean it doesn't make a difference anyway. I was just curious and hoping to be able to look at it and tell. I'll compare the engine block VIN to the car VIN and post back here. It won't prove anything if they are the same but if they are different it at least indicates I might need to do some more research.

But, if it was replaced, that's great. If it was never replaced then that's probably okay too since if it did have the OC issue I'd think it would be toast by now (77K miles).

 

FYI engine blocks, at least the VQ do not have VIN numbers. So no point in wasting your time with it. You will not find a VIN number anywhere on the engine, just on the firewall behind the motor.

 

Your local dealer might be able to tell you were the car was originally purchased from, they keep all the VIN info about the cars.

 

Thanks. That's good to know. I'm surprised though since I thought there was some type of law requiring a VIN on the block.

I have had other vehicles with VINs on the block. I guess it is an optional thing.

 

no vin just a serial number that matches the vin as original you can research that