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Does the oil pressure sender usually fail high or low?

3K views 25 replies 14 participants last post by  Shawshank 
#1 ·
I received a "check oil" warning yesterday evening about 10 seconds after starting my car and immediately shut it down. Oil level was fine. I fired up the Torque app on my phone and with the car off, oil pressure was reading at 2.3 psi. I fired it up again. Oil pressure reading remained at 2.3 psi for a few seconds, then as right when the "check oil" warning came up, the reading jumped to about 50 psi. The lowest recorded oil pressure reading during my commute home was 32.4 psi.

Oil pressure sender starting to fail?
 
#8 ·
It was running smooth and no noises

Put a new sending unit on right away and then if it even hiccups I'd replace the pump
I really really hope I luck out and its just the sending unit failing low. I don't have time at the moment to replace anything that requires more than an hour's worth of work. Of course, right now I'm in no financial position for a new short block either lol
 
#3 ·
I believe they usually fail high.
 
#6 ·
Maybe just the oil pressure sensor is bad (hopefully, you're that lucky). If not, maybe you can throw a UDP on there if you have to replace the oil pump.
 
#7 ·
Put a new sending unit on right away and then if it even hiccups I'd replace the pump
 
#11 ·
Another reason it's nice having a separate sending unit and gauge in my car. The one's using the factory sender and just wiring their gauge in aren't doing a lot more than what the car came with.
 
#16 ·
Update: I replaced the sensor shortly after creating this thread and monitored my oil pressure daily. Pressure was averaging 30 - 32 at warm idle.

Well last night after leaving work, I had to make a quick stop about a mile down the road. When I started it up again, I got the dreaded check oil warning. Oil level was fine and I heard no weird noises for the few seconds the engine was running. Had it towed home and pushed it into the garage for tear down. Hopefully I can get it up and running again by Thanksgiving.
 
#17 ·
Time for an Texas Speed LS6 pump!
 
#20 ·
Mine failed high. At first, it started reading 4-5 PSI when the car was off, then one day it was reading a fairly accurate number, only +70PSI....then one day it just stuck at 121PSI. Good times.
 
#26 ·
Sorry for the gravedigging, but I found my oil pressure hovering right around 120PSI as monitored through the Torque app (even while at operating temperatures ~200F). No abnormal smells, sounds, warning lights, or performance were detected.

I'll log some data tomorrow as well, but it sounds like a new sender is in my future!
 
#23 ·
Hard to say how long it took. I slowly worked on it over the course of 2 days and spent some time cleaning the engine bay. I also wasted an hour yesterday because the harmonic balancer removal tool I rented was missing a critical piece so I had to chase down another one. New pump comes in on Wednesday.

I'm sure replacement can be accomplished in 4 hours or so, assuming you don't run into any issues.
 
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