oil pressure

[golfproeric]

i've recently noticed that my maro isn't keeping oil pressure at the 60 mark on my gauge. it seems to sit just past the half-way mark between 0 and 60, i'd venture to say 45 or 50. is that a problem? i do burn oil but nothing that you can really see coming out of the exhaust. what might be causing the pressure to be low?

[Rangersltw]

Re: oil pressure

Is the car at operating temperature when its reading this? Or cold start up?

I was just dealing with pressure issues this past week on my car. It turned out I had a faulty sending unit when i replaced my broken one last month. Hook a mechanical gauge into where the sending unit goes to get a true reading of your oil psi. Then if your reading low then you know you have other issues not related to the electronic aspect of the system. I'm no master mechanic but that's what I would start with since if that is the problem its easy and cheap to replace a sending unit.

[golfproeric]

Re: oil pressure

yea usually when i cold start the car the pressure is about 60, but as it warms up to temperature the pressure seems to drop

[Rangersltw]

Re: oil pressure

Thats the exact problem I had. The oil psi when at OT it should read 60psi at 1850rpms, thats according to my GM service manual. You could take the sending unit off and hook a mechanical gauge on to test the pressure. If its reading normal then you probably have a bad sending unit or your gauge is just off. Sending units are like 18-22bucks depending where you get it. But if your just idling at OT and its reading about 45 i think thats about right.

[dgreet77]

Re: oil pressure

Nothing wrong with a lower oil pressure at idle when at operating temp. Oil is warmer and flows easier, therefor lower pressure than a cold, hard to move oil.

[golfproeric]

Re: oil pressure

well im not worried about the idle psi, the prob is that when im accelerating it continues to stay at the idle pressure. doesn't come back up to 60 psi when the engine's working.

[Rob Bell]

Re: oil pressure

Like Ranger stated you need to hook up the mechanical gauge. That's the only way to start figuring out what's up.