Hi, any help much appreciated - as have a weird low oil pressure red warning.

If you drive gently, low revs and gentle acceleration - you can get to 70mph and drive for an hour no problem.

But - if late on the school run and push bit harder, hard acceleration - then after say 15mins - when you come to a junction / any form of stop where the revs drop to idle - then the oil light warning comes on.

If you dab the throttle, then the warning light goes out.

An oil change seemed to solve the problem for say 200-300 miles, then it came back - so maybe clogged up / worn oil lift pump??

You can drive off as normal, but,  as soon as you come to another stop / pause in traffic etc. and revs drop to idle - then the oil light comes on.

So as long as revs over say 1000, then it does not seem to appear.

Any thoughts much appreciated.

Thanks

 

Did you renew the filter at the same time as the oil?

Are there any unusual knocking sounds under load?

Is there any drop in performance?

Is there any smoke from the exhaust?

Yes oil filter changed, but didn't get to see it to see condition. No knocks or smoke, performance seems absolutely fine...( but generally avoiding high revsvto try andvavoud the oil l8ght coming on ).  Will it need a main dealer diagnostic tool to tell if the oil lift pump has a fault?  And if it says thete's a fault, could you tell if that is sludge in sump slowing it, or the oil pump having a worn drive shaft etc.  Many thanks

It may just be a faulty oil pressure switch, but without a diagnosis you can't be certain.

My advice would be not to drive it pending getting the oil pressure checked, or there will be a potential to wreck the engine. 
What oil did you use? 

Regards,

Gareth. 

Thanks.  Oil change was done by reputable indie, so i'd expect it to have been the correct grade.

Is the low pressure oil sensor a big job to replace?

I'd read somewhere that there can be very small differences in oil filters ( between OE and an after market filter ) that can be a cause- anyone else know anything on that?

 

Hello Tim,

The situation here is, that you had issues before the filter was changed, so it would be reasonable to exclude that from the equation. 
Oil pressure switch/sensor change? Would not think it would be an expensive change. 
What you have to consider is that you don’t have any idea how ‘good’ the oil pressure actually is once the warning doesn’t show. It could indeed be running only marginally over the warning level - which would be bad news. 
Please don’t assume that no-warning = serviceable - it doesn’t. 
I can only repeat - if it were mine, I wouldn’t be using it prior to getting it investigated.

Service history of the car, and frequency of oil changes?

Regards,

Gareth. 

 

 

Tim.

Forget about the oil filter. I inadvertently misled you because I failed to note the problem existed before the change.

Oil pressure is the single most important factor in keeping the engine functional. Without it the engine will rapidly turn itself into a lump of scrap iron that will cost many thousands of punds to replace. Unless you have positive proof that the oil pressure is up to standard it would be foolish to continue using the car.