Aleki

How is the oil pressure gauge supposed to behave under normal conditions? Sometimes mine stays on two when the car is idling and then moves up to 5 when accellerating or when generally in motion. At other times it stays on 5 regardlless or whether it's idling or in motion.

I recently checked my oil and it looked like it was below the min mark. I added a quart but yesterday when I checked again it was way over the Max mark. Am I in trouble here?

Muhammad

I thought from min to max was 1 quart, maybe I'm wrong...

The pressure gauge should run at 5 bar once the car is warmed up and under throttle load. At or above 5 is normal. It should drop 1-1.5 bar when you stop and idle, but it will go right back up to 5 with any acceleration.

Not enough pressure means low oil, too much pressure means too much oil.

I'm not sure if I would really worry if it didn't go down from 5 bar at idle. What is your car idling at rpm-wise?

ARK

The oil pressure gauge is NOT an indication of oil LEVEL, unless it is so low that you have 0 PSI !

Seattle Scott

The oil pressure will read higher when the oil is colder and thicker because there is more resistance to flow, which creates pressure.

Either too little or way too much oil will make the oil pressure lower. (Too much and the oil pump essentially cavitates) There is a point though where too much oil does raise the pressure, this can cause mainshaft seals to leak or blow, that's a bad thing.

To check your oil shut the engine off and wait five minutes at the bare minimum. The best is to check the oil before you start to drive, i.e. it's cold, all the engine oil is in the "bottom" of the engine and it's also cool.

When checking, pull the dipstick and allow the dipstick tube to vent for 10-30 seconds. This is to allow the oil to rise in the dipstick tube so the level won't be mis-read as low.

Take your time checking the oil. I've seen a few cars/trucks that had too much oil in them because the oil was checked too fast, so more oil is added, causing oil pressure alarm to go off, so more oil is added, etc.

With a really good oil gauge (better than an Audi one), you can tell if the oil is low a quart or more. This is not a good practice to follow. I can do it in my truck and I don't and being a quart low when you take ten quarts isn't that bad, but why do it?

If you got too much oil in your engine, get it out, now. Then check it later and make sure it still isn't too high. I saw an Audi 80 once with 4 quarts too much, I took out 2 or 3 and it looked good. Next day the owner told me it was still too high and he took another quart out.