- This topic has 6 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 6 months ago by
.
- Topic
Patient: 2010 Lincoln MKT (basically a flex with differenet bodywork) 3.5L Ecoboost with about 100k on the odometer
I’m getting a low oil pressure light generally at startup and also under somewhat brisk acceleration until the engine is fully up to temperature. I tried an oil and filter change thinking it could be a bad filter, but with the replacement motorcraft I’m still having issues. I also moved to Mobil1 0w40 this oil change from the originally recommended 5w20 this oil change as Ford changed their oil spec to 5w30 and the mobil1 sheers down to about a 30 weigh and this is a direct injected engine so there can be some oil dilution with fuel.
I’m thinking perhaps the oil pressure sender switch replacement might be the next option as it’s relatively cheap (~$11 @ autozone) and seems to be somewhat common to fail. Assuming it keeps going after that I guess I’m looking at getting an oil pressure tester and checking there. The car runs fine besides the light, oil level is fine. It’s been doing it for about the past 2 week during this time we’ve also traveled about 3k+ miles from TX to IN to PA and back to Texas. I’m thinking if it was actually the oil pressure the engine would be in chunks and I would have noticed it draining out when I did the oil change this morning.
- Replies
I’d start with having all the codes pulled up before you spend $1, had the same issue on my 90 Integra 2 summers ago, I ditched the sending unit for an actual oil pressure gauge, which confirmed the oil pump was failing.
Good luck.
Yeah probably not a bad idea. I just ordered the odb2 bluetooth things just now, but I’ll have autozone do a scan and see if they come back with anything. The Lincoln/Ford vehicle health report comes back clear, but I really have no idea what all it checks, but i guess something (hopefully) gets stored for low oil pressure events. It’d be nice if vehicle manufactures would at least get senders that did actual values besides 0 or 1 but instead we have to get real pressure gauges -_-
Well auto zone couldn’t find anything as they said they could only find codes if the check engine light comes on and it hasn’t. So low oil pressure light for about 24 hours now so I’m probably going to try and swap out the sender switch since it’s cheap and seems relatively easy to swap out.
In increasing order of bad news:
1. Failing oil pressure sensor.
2. Failing oil pump.
3. Excessive bearing clearances.I have seen weird causes of flickering oil lights which had nothing to do with failing engine components, though. A friend of mine had the same symptoms on a 50’s-era Harley. Turns out a foil cover from an oil bottle spout had fallen off into his oil tank, partially restricting flow. As far as I know, however, oil bottles no longer use foil covers.
Definitely change the oil pressure sender. With the old sender removed, it might be a good idea to temporarily attach a direct-reading oil pressure gauge just to verify the health of the lubrication system.
Mobil1 definitely still does the foil(ish) thing on their bottles, it’s a pain to open without something sharp around.
I just wanted to give an update. I swapped out the oil pressure sender yesterday morning. It was about as easy as changing oil, however slightly more awkward as the sender was located above the a/c compressor and oil filter so there wasn’t a whole lot of clearance. Since the swap it’s been oil pressure light free. WOOT!
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.