Oil Light stays on for a sec

[Hav]

Hi,
For the past few days I have been noticing that there is a slight noise during startups and the oil light stays on for a second or two. I have never had this issue before. The oil light would go away instantaneously. I had an oil change 1000 miles ago. Current fill is QHP 5W20 with 3 Oz. ARX and a Purolator Premium Plus filter. Car runs and revvs fine. Is this something to worry about?

 

[webfors]

Yes. Oil pressure is goofy. Could be bad filter. Start by changing the filter, top up and see if it goes away.

 

[youdontwannaknow]

for me it was the oil filter.
is this a different type of oil and filter than previous runs ?

 

[Hav]

Filter is the same oil is a grade thinner. I generally use 5W30

 

[Hav]

Can the the thinner Oil (5W20) create lesser oil pressure?

 

[JohnBrowning]

Cold be filter or your sender could be getting a tad old!

 

[Hav]

Are you referring to the oil pump as "sender"?

 

[Familyguy]

Originally Posted By: Hav
Are you referring to the oil pump as "sender"?


lower viscosity will cause the oil pressure to drop a bit. By "sender" he means the oil pressure sender which is the device that actually measures the pressure in the engine and triggers the idiot light. Sometimes they fail and give a false reading.

 

[Gary Allan]

You've probably got a leaking ADBV. It's a bit early for it to happen, but there's nothing to a leaking ADBV. They happen.



You do give me cause to ponder a new "BITOGism".


I'm going to start rating oils and filters on a "red light dwell time" quotient.

"Those spec's for that oil look very impressive, but what's the red light dwell time quotient?".

"I changed to XXXXyyyZZZ due to the outstanding red light dwell time quotient properties reported here on the board".

 

[Geo_Prizm]

Purolator Premium Plus is Pure Gold?
Pure Gold says it filters 99.9 % of contaminants from oil.Maybe the filter material is too thick and oil can not get past the filter easily?

 

[Ken2]

Is the oil pressure sensor (sender) before or after the oil filter? In any case, the oil filter has a bypass to prevent excess resistance to the oil flow.

Is your engine one of the sludge prone engines? I think this is the case. http://www.yotarepair.com/Sludge_Zone.html. Consider that the oil pick up screen might be clogged with sludge. If you've previously cleaned the engine with Auto-Rx, and I see that you're now using a maintenance dose of A-Rx, so this might be barking up the wrong tree.

And, the oil pressure sensor might be dying. Or the engine is idling very slowly at start up.

Try the easy (and cheap) things first. Put on a new oil filter and top up the oil. If that fixes it, great. If not, check back.

 

[parimento1]

Thats funny, my car with the same engine 1MZ-FE, 97 Avalon did the same exact thing for about a year...had no idea why. I JUST switched to Mobil 1 EP 5W30 and no longer does this...why I don't know. I am using a regular purolator filter as always, nothing special. I thought it was just the oil pressure sending unit, but I guess it i not

 

[ADFD1]

The sending units do go bad. I just replaced mine a while back, I have a factory Oil pressure gauge and it was reading lower than normal. Changed out the sending unit, reads in the upper range of normal on a cold start drops to middle when the oil is hot.

 

[speedyswede]

I encounter a 1-2sec oil light if I use any other oil filter other than an OE spec'd Mann W917. I've tried ST, Wix, PureOne...same results everytime.

 

[Hav]

I had an update. I changed the filter. Put a Purolator Pure One yesterday. The light still stays on for about 2 seconds on cold starts. But when started immediately after shut down the oil light vanishes right away. I am thinking the 5W20 might have something to do with this. The factory specs 5W30 for the 1MZ. Is this going to kill the engine? I'd get rid of the curent 5W20 then. It is synthetic and only has 1500 miles on the oil.