problems with oil pressure gauge...

[tahoedriver]

What's up all, my folks got a 06' Escalade with 94,000 miles on it. It has the 6.0 L Vortec. It was bought about 8 months ago with about 86,000 (give or take a couple hundred). About a couple months ago, the oil gauge started to "act up". At idle and regular cruising speeds the gauge reads normal (80 psi), only when the engine is accelerating (moderate to heavy) does the gauge drop. Now it'll sometimes drop to 40 or sometimes to zero, at which time the low pressure chime will sound off. At first this would occur as it was going up hill and passing, however it appears to be happening more often when accelerating within the city.
Not sure if this holds any relevance but the only work that's been done on it is the oil changes when the oil life indicator reaches 4%. Its been running on and off of regular and mid-grade gas with 10w40 oil. Thanks in advance for any help what so ever...

[maxwedge]

First of all 10-40 should never be used in a modern engine, nothing to do with oil pressure, but that is the wrong oil, 5/30 is the usual blend ,but check the owners manual. Ok, oil press. I would get someone to out a direct reading shop oil pressure gage on the engine and confirm those readings it may just be a bad sending unit or dash unit.

[tahoedriver]

Thanks for the tip, do the sending units in these escalade's typically malfunc? I've just begun to research this issue and the sending unit has come up more then once as an issue. Someone even said using a fram filter (which is on the truck) could cause a drop in press. which sounds like they're just feeding b.s.

[gmtech1]

Yes, are issues with the sending units, also clusters, and have seen oil pump problems with those. As stated, you need to have the oil pressure verified with a manual gauge to start diagnosis.