buring oil & wet spark plugs

[terror032.5]

i have a 2003 altima 2.5 w/06 engine

for almost 2 weeks now my car has been burning insane amounts of oil, in the mornings or after it sits for more than 2-3hrs at start up it burns and smokes for about 5mins. when accelerating it smokes and i can feel hesitation cause of the wet spark plug and its only one plug so im thinking its a piston ring others are saying it could be the head gasket. it leaked for the first 2 days then stopped, when it was leaking i thought about the rear main seal. so ive checked with some mechanics and all have given me estimates on fixing either piston ring or head gasket with prices from 1200-3800$. since its my only car i cant leave it with them just for them to check it out cause i need to go to work & take kids to skool, with out this car we're up creek. but in a week im able to take off work and kids will be with my in-laws so that will be the only time to fix this, anyway . ..

so im stuck on either buying a full rebuild kit (pistons/rings/gaskets/springs/bolts/timing)700$ + labor is about 800$
OR already have price on a new engine 1900$ 2yr warranty unlimited mileage
or even if its worth it a VQ35 swap 1900$ (same warranty) plus if any of you know what will i need to do for that swap to happen PLEASE im all ears ... motor mounts? trans? ecu? ive got about $3K to spend

if you have different ideas on what it could be please drop me a line before i start putting money into it. thanx
so only one spark plug is wet with oil on threads and abit burnt & i clean everytime after use. so far it has burns 4.5quarts in alil less then 2 weeks, i put oil in but not as much as needed cause it smokes so damn much but oil on dip stick is at about half or abit less.

[SHIFT_COUPE]

Welcome to NICO!

The QR25DE equipped Altima and Sentra have been plagued with these type of issues. Most of what I recall has been directly related to the head gasket. I had owned 2 Sentra Spec-Vs which burnt oil like crazy. Fortunately I didn't own them long enough for anything too bad to happen to them. I'm no mechanic but my opinion is that its the head gasket as that has been the common issue among these engines.

Yo mentioned you have an '06 engine in it. What happened to the original?

Also, is your spark plug wet with oil or something else?

[terror032.5]

the original engine got hydro locked due to cold air intake & cracked a piston, luckily i was still under warranty and got a new engine. but yea i keep hearing about the head gasket issue now, i heard about em yrs back with the for the 02-06 engines i thought i was one of the lucky ones to not have that problem. so anyway the spark plug is wet with oil im about 80% sure of that and i do clean em every time after a drive cause if i dont it studders. but when i do clean the plugs some of smeel sort of smeels like burnt coolant but when i wipe it off it looks alot like oil also its only one spark plug that gets wet, the last on to the left. so if it could be a head gasket would a head gasket repair 80$ from autozone be a better way to go instead of replacing?

[TomNJ]

What kind of oil are you using? Your problem sounds mechanical, but there are some really poor oils shown on this website that have crazy volatility, like 80% versus a specification for modern oils of 15% max.

http://www.pqiamerica.com

TomNJ