Help! Oil pressure problem - or not?
Discussion
Apologies for the long post - its a newbie question - but caused me a lot of anxiety today!
Just today, my oil pressure warning light (factory standard pressure sendor) started flickering. Flickering randomly like between 5 and 10 times a second - almost like a bad connection. Then off for a few seconds then more flickering.
The pressure gauge though had the pressure reading just fine. When I went over a little bump in the road, it would start flickering again.
Today I did get the oil probably the hottest its been because I got stuck in some traffic. When it started, I checked the oil level in the tank (I have a dry sump system). That was okay, and the pressure gauge behaved as normal.
Normally my car runs at about 4.5 bar pressure. When the oil is hotter, and I'm idling or at low revs, the oil pressure can drop to about 3 bar, but it picks up again to 4.5 bar at 2000 rpm or higher. The warning light normally goes off at about 1 bar pressure when I start the car up. I have a pre-oiler as well which I use before starting.
When this flickering started, it was very rare at 4.5 bar, but almost continuous flickering (never a continuous light though, unless the engine is off) at 3 bar.
This only started today, and as soon as it did I came straight home after checking that the oil was still there and seemed to be flowing fine.
So, is this the sender going bad? I'm guessing that the warning light is a separate pressure switch to the analog pressure gauge, and they are just housed in the same unit. Is that going bad? Or is this symptomatic of a serious problem with something in the oiling system and my diagnosis is misguided?
Any help would be much apperciated as I am obviously not driving again until this is fixed.
If the pressure gauge was giving a constant reading then that could be in doubt but it is not, it is showing exactly what you are used to i.e. lower pressure at idle and when hot and normal when on the open road.
So I would say all is well in the oil system apart from a duff low pressure switch. The alternative is that the White/Brown wire is shorting to earth somewhere between the light and the sender. The circuit is that the light is live (green wire) and is earthed at the sender.
Steve
So I would say all is well in the oil system apart from a duff low pressure switch. The alternative is that the White/Brown wire is shorting to earth somewhere between the light and the sender. The circuit is that the light is live (green wire) and is earthed at the sender.
Steve
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