we just bought an 03 nissan altima with 30K miles on it. It ran great,
no noises, no real reason to think anything was wrong.  I am not a
mechanic so you can see how far that got me. About a month ago my wife
says the car is making a noise, I get in drive it, yeah it's making a
noise. I check the oil and it isn't registering on the dipstick. After
I freak out, I add two quarts of oil until I see it on the dipstick. We
take it to have an oil change, for the second time since we've had the
car ( every 3000 miles ) The quick lube attendent seemed pretty
knowledgable and suggested we do a flush of some kind to clear the
sludge from running it with low oil. All that done, we leave. A week
later I check the oil again and it is 1/2 quart low. We just took a
trip in it, I made sure the oil level was half way between H & L before
we left. Drove 200 miles on interstate and it's still same. another 200
and it's low. I add a quart we get back home 200 more miles and it's
not registering on the dipstick. I added 1 1/4 quart to get it back up
to between H & L.
Ok, so the thing I don't understand, is where the oil going? It smokes
very faintly at startup and not all the time, and there isn't any
obvious oil leaks that are showing on the garage floor. Using that much
oil, I would expect to be blowing out a smoke screen while driving down
the road. Any suggestions would be great, thanks.