low oil pressure?????

Are there any bulletins or anything on how to fix a car with low oil pressure? What would be the common problem for this? It shows low oil pressure at idle when it is warmed up. I put a manual gauge on it and it was at 5lbs of pressure. Suggestions?????

Maybe you are low on oil...Assuming you have checked the basics, besides the possiblity of a bad oil pump, engines generally take the biggest hit in oil pressure when they loose a main bearing. Does your engine have any sort of knocking noise?

Hi! Mine have a sort of knocking... What can i do to make the bearing live longer. Explain your idea please...

ingeborgdot,

Try
'http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=255510'

Remove leading and following '

350winder,

My Aurora is hitting on 200,000Km. I use STP Oil Treament every oil change. It may help yours.

I am on my third aurora all would idle around 9 psi when warm and would jump to 40-50 psi when going down the road. Put over 140,000 miles on two and 100,000 on mine

Both my 95's (128k &112k) usualy run around 10-13psi hot at idle.
The wrong viscosity oil can cause a problem also. These motors run hot and viscosity is affected more at temp. extremes.

I posted this same thing a while back, but I think it is an interesting read so here it is again...

There is a switch by the oil filter for pressure. They can degrade over time also to set off the light/warning. Make sure you use the oem part so the values of the switch are what they should be. It is a pipe thread so have some teflon tape to seal it up. $20 dollar part easy fix.

This is something from bbobynski form another forum about oil pressure. He was an engineer on the Northstar project so I tend to beleive what he says...
"A perfectly good Northstar will idle with 5 PSI oil pressure when it is smoking hot with smoking hot oil.....

Oil pressure is greatly over rated....LOL.... The engine just needs enough oil pressure to deliver oil to the center line of the crank to lube the rod bearings. The minimum oil pressure required is determined by the diameter of the main bearings and the RPM. The oil has to overcome centripital force to reach the center of the crank...that is what oil pressure is for.

Most engines , including the Northstar, will idle with little or no oil pressure. The load on the bearings is so low and the RPM is so low that very little oil flow is needed. Excess oil pressure just takes more energy and fuel....costing fuel economy.

The oil pressure of the Northstar was a bit of a crap shoot when it was being designed and developed. With the expansion of all aluminum main bearing bulkheads and an all aluminum engine and 32 hydraulic tappets there was some consternation about how much oil flow and pump capacity was required...esecially as the engine aged and wore with miles. The pump on the 93 Northstars was pretty big and flowed a lot of oil...even with the large capacity pump , though, the idle oil pressure with the engine smoking hot (like 300 degree oil and 265 degree coolant in Death Valley after pullling a trailer to the top of the pass flat out....LOL) would often be 4-5 PSI. No prob.

As experience was gained with the engine in development and in testing we realized that the oil pump was on the large size for what it needed to be and was costing efficiency and moving a lot of oil around unnecessarily. In 96 the pump was downsized to be closer so as to pump less oil....and improve efficiency.

People are enamored with high flow oil pumps and high oil pressure but it really isn't nescessary. Even the sand rail guys that are spinning the engine 7000 and 8000 RPM use the standard oil pump with no problems. The only issue they have with oiling and bearing problems is climbing hills so steep at max RPM that the pickup sucks air and starves the system...so they run a pressurized oiler system to "make up" oil flow when the pickup sucks air and/or dry sump the sytem

my 95 runs at about 11-12 hot idle, but then again, i used thicker oil than what they call for.

I have the same problem, but I see "low oil pressure" message only when runing on steep roads or inclines. I already changed oil pressure sensor, but no results. Suggestions?

Gentlemen:

General Motors states in their shop manuals that the MINIMUM OIL PRESSURE on the 4.0 Aurora Engine is 5 PSI. This is totally normal as the Aurora engine was designed just like this.

OldsAuroraMan1,

The pressure in my 99 Aurora drops down to 0, and this is when "low oil pressure" message gets displayed.