New Member with Sludge in Engine

LynMarStat said:

Hello,
New member here. I have a 2015 Nissan Murano that has sludge in the engine. It only have 51,000 miles. And yes, I changed the oil.... At every start up, I get BIG puffs of white smoke. I really like Nissan, as this is my second Nissan vehicle, but this sludge issue is changing my mind. Has anyone else had or have this problem. Everyone tells me to trade it in. Nissan says I need a new engine. Any suggestions or fix?

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Are you getting white smoke only at startup? If so, then it's probably water vapor which may be caused by a blown head gasket or a crack in the head casting from the water chamber to the combustion chamber. Perform a compression test on all cylinder and then if you find a suspect cylinder, follow it up with a leak-down test which will pretty much nail down the actual defect spot.

However if the smoke is blue in color and is always there, then that's an indication of oil burning. A good way to test for oil burning is to first fully warm up the engine. Stand behind the car. Have someone rev the engine to around 4,000 RPM and hold at that RPM for about 15 seconds. If you see a lot of blue smoke come out of the tailpipe, the engine is burning excessive oil. If it's black smoke, then it may be leaking fuel injectors.

If it turns out to be ether a blown head gasket or a cracked head, the expense of that fix is considerably less then a total engine replacement.

If you plan to de-sludge the engine, step #1 - manually clean out the valve chamber area that's under the valve cover. Step #2 - drop the oil pan and clean out any sludge there; remove the oil pickup screen and clean it. Be real careful when using any sludge remover; run engine for some short period of time, then drain oil and replace oil filter; do this at least 5 times. Just use some cheap oil and filter when doing the cleaning. If you don't go through the drain/replacement cycling like I suggested, you could end up with a lot of loose sludge that could plug up some critical oil galleries and cause engine damage.

New Member with random white smoke from exhaust

Update- so my mechanic says the “smoke” we bagged and provided as well as the videos we showed him leads him to believe a small coolant leak is happening and that Nissan will most likely argue with us as to what the issue is and prob not be willing to rebuild or replace the engine so I might want to get out of the vehicle. I’m so upset. I really really liked the pathfinder platinum. First time I bought a car with all the bells and whistles I wanted, 360 cameras, heated and cooling seats, leather throughout and red! I love red. I’m so very upset this has happened and that Nissan sells a piece of crap like this. 47k miles which is young for a Japanese vehicle. I’m probably going to get out of the car, can’t imagine Nissan will stand by their power train warranty and actually fix the issue. So devastated!!

Binder said:

Hi. I am in the same predicament. I have a 2015 murano 47k miles. Engine filled with sludge. Perfect service records with all oil changes required. Nissan said I need a new engine for $11,500. They have AWFUL CUSTOMER SERVICE. Never again...

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Commenting because I see you replied only half a day ago. I’m in this same situation with a 2012 370Z. Bought the car used with 64k miles, threw a cam pos sensor code and wouldn’t stay out of limp mode by the time I got it home (3 1/2 hours later). Took it to Nissan, who told me the engine was sludged, and I’d need a replacement ($5,000 for an engine with twice as many miles as mine), or they could try to clean it (but they assured me it would never run the same again).

Let me just say, if Nissan tells you this, don’t believe their bullshit. I got the car back as my uncle wanted to do some investigating. He found the cam pos sensors were replaced with aftermarket sensors that didn’t fit the same as the OEM sensors. About $150 later, the sensors were replaced and she ran great.

This isn’t to say Nissan was wrong about the sludge - I did an engine flush and a couple oil changes, and it did seem to clean out lots of sludge. The car blew a lot of exhaust smoke afterward until I found a PCV valve was so gunked up you could no longer shake it and hear the internal components rattling around. I replaced both, which helped the issue, but a week later it began to misfire due to a spark plug being fouled. I took it to a shop who ran a compression test on the cylinder with the fouled spark plug (which came back great) and changed them all out for me. Now I’m seeing a lot of improvement in the smoke, and I suspect after my next oil change it may disappear completely as my oil is already quite dirty. I believe sludge is still being loosened and mixed into the oil, especially as the valve cover and oil pan weren’t manually cleaned. The shop I took my car to said they have seen a Pathfinder do this same thing because of sludge build up in those areas, and after cleaning (and replacing the valve cover gasket), the problem stopped. The dealership planned to do that had I let them proceed with cleaning the engine, but since they tried to make me believe my engine was toast, I decided against letting them touch anything further.

Long story short - these engines are very reliable. Your issue is likely not catastrophic. I think my car has needed TLC for awhile. The shop which changed my spark plugs told me the strut bar appeared to have never been removed. The dealership tried to convince me they were sure a previous owner had gone 20k miles or more without an oil change. The fact they even said that to me with such confidence despite knowing no history of the car tells me it was a scare tactic.

FUCK the dealership, just do as much maintenance as you can, and if nothing works or your problem worsens, then look into more expensive options. My car went from blowing awful smelling blue smoke almost every time I fired it up and after short periods at idle to now, which is that I hardly see any smoke at all except a bit after a cold start. Also be sure to keep an eye on your coolant and oil levels.

Hope my story provides some insight into your issue - it’s been an extremely frustrating month dealing with this. I have faith your engine will be okay.