2013 G37x, 35k miles on the ODO. Learning the hard way that buying a car off lease is a total crapshoot.

Engine runs fine, but there is visible sludge through the oil fill cap and one record of a single oil change at 17k. Car occasionally makes a puff of smoke at startup, which i traced back to oil pushing through the drivers side PCV, likely because the baffles in the valve cover are gunked up.

I assume bringing it to the dealership will just give them an excuse to void my warranty and suggest expensive things.

 

Was the car CPO? did you purchase from Infiniti dealership?

 

Nope. lesson learned.

So im figuring a high detergent synthetic like m1 and a few short oil change intervals, im just wondering what to do about the gunk behind the PCV...guess i could pull the valve cover and go to town with brake cleaner

 

Not sure how bad the sludge is. Gooey or caked? Definitely use high quality full synthetic and you might want to try seafoam mixed in the oil. Change out the oil a couple of times. Hope it helps.

 

The stuff i can see appears to be pretty soft (probed a chunk visible from the oil fill with a pen). Who knows what it looks like under the valve cover. Im a little concerned using any sort of solvent in this motor. Im sure a valvetrain this complicated has lots of tiny oil passages to block if a chunk breaks loose.

 

Hope it's not as bad as this and good luck cleaning. Keep us posted along with pictures.

 

A couple of years ago I actually saw what the oil pan looks like filled with sludge at my Infiniti dealer from someone who had not changed their oil in over 30k miles. This vehicle was also a lease and it was costing that customer $10k for an engine replacement.

My advise is to get an estimate from an Infiniti dealer to drop and clean out the oil pan as well as cleaning out the valve covers. I'm sure every Infiniti dealer has seen lots of this as many of those that lease think changing oil is a waste of money.

Sludge in an oil pan is like mud and frequent oil changes is not going to get rid of it. You will be just wasting money on oil that would be better spent cleaning out the oil pan and valve covers.

Just my $.02

Telcoman

 

Dropping the pan and valve covers doesnt seem like a particularly difficult task. Any reason you would need the dealer to do these things?

I have no reason to believe this is a worst case scenario at this point as the engine runs smooth with no odd noises.

 

If I was in your situation I would be speaking with the service manager at the local Infiniti dealer. I would prefer to meet and have their most experienced factory trained technician doing this work.
They might even recommend that you get rid of the vehicle and find another that had a history of regular servicing while it is still running.

Telcoman