I just bought my first car after finally getting my life together and getting my license for the first time (I'm 27) I'm not proud how long it's taken me to do it but I'm proud that I am finally getting it together. The car ran good, it would hesitate to crank every once in awhile but it always started, I only had it on the road 10 days when I was driving it down the road on the interstate and it overheated and gave out on me. I researched a bit and realized I had no coolant in the reservoir so being mechanically stupid as this is my first car I dumped about a little over a half a bottle of water in the reservoir not knowing it was the reservoir to try and get my car to the next exit after giving the car 40mins to cool down. It made close to the exit before a little bit of white smoke came out of the right side of my hood as viewed from the driver's seat and it gave out on me for a final time. Upon further inspection through friends helping after I towed the car it had oil in the spark plugs and upon doing a ghetto compression test by leaving one if the spark plugs out while we tried to crank it, it spurted out a good bit of oil. I know there are a few causes for oil in the spark plugs from everything I've been researching but I don't know what exactly out of those things is causing it.
Where did you buy the car? You said you've had it only 10 days, is there any kind of warranty on it? Sure sounds like it had a pre-existing condition when you bought it that caused the overheating problem. Overheating can cause all kinds of damage to an engine. At a minimum the head gasket is almost certainly blown. It's not clear from your description whether the oil you observed was coming from inside the cylinder, or is leaking from the valve cover and compression was just blowing it out from there. Do the spark plugs themselves have oil on them?
It would probably be best to have a good independent mechanic (NOT a chain like Pep Boys or Firestone) look at it to evaluate how bad it really is. A 15-year-old Altima is not worth putting a lot of money into so if the engine is toast I'd look for something else and make sure a mechanic looks at it before buying.
I am still wondering if the oil was on the outside of the spark plugs or on the insulator on the nose of the plugs.
Sounds like more than one problem. Oil has probably been in the spark plug tubes due to a bad valve cover and the overheating is most likely a head gasket
The valve cover seems alright but I could be wrong, there didn't seem to be any oil leaking through the outside of the engine from the valve cover. Should I try and get it rebuilt or is it not worth it and I should just get a new car?
The valve cover being bad is for the tube seals which would cause the oil on the spark plugs. Depending on how attached you are to the car it is not worth doing a head gasket it would need an engine regardless so that’s up to you on fix and keep driving if there’s no real problems otherwise or unload and move on
Probably a cracked cylinder head, because the pressure fed oil to the rocker arms is now getting in your combustion chamber. If it's not too far gone, you could pull the head(s), get them rebuilt at a machine shop and install them.
How much do you think that would cost roughly?
That generation Altima was known for excessive oil consumption (mostly the 4 cylinder model) just like other midsize cars like the Accord and Camry in that era and there are instances of the spark plugs being coated with oil. U did mention the engine overheating and white smoke coming out, so I would take it to a mechanic who knows what they are doing and have it checked out. Check for a blown head gasket (common on older 4 cylinder Altimas), the cylinder heads and if ur engine is starting to go bad, I would not waste any money on it. They were not well made and u would be better off selling it as a parts car.
