Oil pressure

I was just wondering what everyones driver info center says the oil pressure is when the engine is up to operating temp,195-205 degrees, and your car is at idle? Mine reads 12-13 pounds of pressure, 5 pounds is the minimum, but that seems awful low to me.BKVic

That's normal range. 5 or 6 in hot weather, 10 or 12 in cool or cold weather.

this has stumped me as long as i own my car too, it will have good oil pressure when it is cold and very low when it is warm, How or why does the pressure drop?

When the engine is cold the oil is thick so oil pressure will be high, as the engine heats up the oil will start to thin and pressure drops. My local dealer told me that I could put 5W40 into it if I wanted to raise the pressure a little when the engine was hot but if everyone elses oil pressure is in the same neighborhood Ill just use the 5w30 that owners manual calls for. Ive got 58,000 on my engine right now and want to make sure I get atleast 200,000 out of it.

BKVic

the pressure drops when warm because the oil warms up becoming thinner, allowing it to flow more easily with less resistance=pressure.

Does all cars do this? I have other vehicles with oil pressure gauges; I never noticed it before on them

Does all cars do this? I have other vehicles with oil pressure gauges; I never noticed it before on them


All cars oil pressure will drop as the oil heats up and thins out but Ive never had a car drop to 12-14 pounds of pressure though. I thought something was very wrong with my car until I found out that the minimum oil pressure is 5 pounds. It makes me feel better knowing my pressure is more then twice the minimum at idle but it still seems low to me.



BKVic

On my 2001 the cold oil pressure is about 56 psi, and the hot pressure is about 17 psi. The motor has about 44K on the clock, and the oil life indicator reads about 80%

I just did a oil and filter change on my "99" 83K miles with 5w-30 Castrol gtx.I'm going with the cheapest oil I can find that is still API certified that is, next time and compare the performance. I got pro-line from pep-boys for about 53 cents a quart and was going to put that in the Aurora too but found 7 quarts of the Castrol. The pro-line went in my truck. Any way here are some things I learned..

first off, i dont know what i'm going to do about oil yet. I'm still waiting on pep-boys to get me the information from the supplier of the pro-line because I read this..
http://www.virtual-cafe.com/~john/AMSOIL/oilfaq2.html

PF58 and PF61 cross reference as the same filter.

15mm socket takes the plug out. Used a multi-filter tool. The book said to torque to 32Nm (24 LBft) I stopped at about 20 LBft because it made me nervous putting a filter on that tight, plus it's hard to read a torque gauge from upside down and to the side.

I measured out a half quart to top it off and the stick only reads just past 3 lines up.(the stick reads full now 1-5-04, must be a slow drain) It's hard to read with the color they chose and i had to keep checking it over and over. But changing the oil was quite easy.. Everything is right there..

I couldnt get my oil life to reset any imput on this anyone? Everything else seems to be resetting.. ----> (amazing just what is in the manual)

Now for my oil pressure..

At idle it was running 20 psi at around 6 to 700 rpm.

63 psi when held at 2000 rpm

also my temp was just to where the line starts on the 200 deg mark.

when cold (the outside temp was 40 deg) my pressure at idle which i didnt make a note of the rpm (rpm was about 800) was 70 psi give or take a few psi.

note!! this is with new oil plus if you want to go by my numbers you should use the pf 61 filter ..

Those are really good numbers. Well above average. 70 PSI is approaching the holding limit of the main seals. You have nothing to worry about oil-wise. If you can't remove the filter by hand, it was put on too tight. I installed the Fram Sure-Drain last summer and it is a little slow draining but definitely a nice product. No more drain plug!

Castrol GTX is on sale at meijers for those of you who have them

FYI - my last car was a '90 olds touring sedan. I bought it with 90k miles and used Mobile-1 until the day I traded it in. Wtih 222k HARD miles it burned no oil and ran perfectly having no mechanical engine repairs whatsoever.

Granted Mobile-1 is a lot more $$ but I think it's worth every penny!

FYI - my last car was a '90 olds touring sedan. I bought it with 90k miles and used Mobile-1 until the day I traded it in. Wtih 222k HARD miles it burned no oil and ran perfectly having no mechanical engine repairs whatsoever.

Granted Mobile-1 is a lot more $$ but I think it's worth every penny; It's all I use. At 157k on my Aurora now, I'm dying to see how far it will go.

Cold oil pressure on my 2001 4.0 is 69 lbs at cold start idle.
Warmed up, it's usually about 14-17 lbs in drive, idling at
600 rpm.


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GM!!! SAVE OLDS!!!