First moment of panic !
Discussion
Had a bit of panic the other night, driving along happily in the rare Scottish good weather was nearly home and noticed that oil pressure gauge was not registering at all and to be honest it may have been like that for a good while.
Oil level was fine and the warning light was off but still obviously concerned me
One of my neighbours has his own garage and he kindly took a quick look but was pretty confident it would be the sender or gauge at fault
He was unable to do anything in depth but said there was plenty of oil splashing about at the cam shaft and the engine sounded all ok so was 90% confident it was a gauge or sensor problem. He also kindly offered to do an oil pressure test on car if I drop it off with him one morning.
So while still a bit wary feeling a lot happier now - oh and thanks to Scotty for the email advice :-)
Oil level was fine and the warning light was off but still obviously concerned me
One of my neighbours has his own garage and he kindly took a quick look but was pretty confident it would be the sender or gauge at fault
He was unable to do anything in depth but said there was plenty of oil splashing about at the cam shaft and the engine sounded all ok so was 90% confident it was a gauge or sensor problem. He also kindly offered to do an oil pressure test on car if I drop it off with him one morning.
So while still a bit wary feeling a lot happier now - oh and thanks to Scotty for the email advice :-)
,ive never had a car where i watch the gauges so much'''''kinda wish they werent there.AIUI, the low pressure warning light is driven by a completely separate pressure switch which is independent of the pressure sender that drives the gauge. This means you have some redundancy: it is very unlikely that both will fail together.
Therefore, if the gauge is showing zero but the low pressure warning light is not lit, it's 99% likely that the gauge or its sender has failed.
If it were genuine low oil pressure, you'd almost certainly see both the gauge and the warning light in agreement.
Given how unreliable the gauge's sender is, I personally would not panic if it shows zero but the warning light is not lit. But if the light comes on then I'd stop regardless of what the gauge is saying.
Therefore, if the gauge is showing zero but the low pressure warning light is not lit, it's 99% likely that the gauge or its sender has failed.
If it were genuine low oil pressure, you'd almost certainly see both the gauge and the warning light in agreement.
Given how unreliable the gauge's sender is, I personally would not panic if it shows zero but the warning light is not lit. But if the light comes on then I'd stop regardless of what the gauge is saying.
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