Oil pressure gauge reading free reliability

[Woody_clio]

My oil pressure reads barely 2 bar on cold then drops when warm.are the standard gauges reliable or have I Got an issue.

The cars done 140k and is 23 years old so I'm not expecting the gauge to be spot on but was wondering if the standard oil gauge should be relied on.

Cheers

[Vandella]

in short, no

[Woody_clio]

Thanks,the car sounds mint and there's no oil light on the dash so I may go down the route of a better oil pressure gauge.cheers

[PhilW]

Mine did the same before the engine rebuild.
The engine ran well, no noises at all, decent performance etc. But for piece of mind before I dismantled the engine I borrowed an external oil pressure test kit and put it where the oil pressure sensor is mounted a the back of the engine. It gave the same readings, so decided to go for a full rebuild to be sure.

On strip down, everything was in tolerance with the exception of the auxiliary oil pump drive at the front of the engine. Not sure if this was the problem, but its all that could be found and its on the main oil feed circuit.
Best thing for you to do is test with an extrnal oil pressure kit, aitbwont take long and will give you peace of mind (or not).

Before you ask if after the rebuild the oil pressure guage is showing good oil pressure 😉, I have to say that I don't know as I have not started the engine yet. Other things to finish off first.

Good luck with yours

[16v_paddy]

The gauge is purely a gimmick & can safely be ignored

[PhilW]

With the exception of my car Paddy 😉, it was bang on for me. Unless the external oil pressure tester was faulty 😳.
I know what you are saying though, in most cases wildly inaccurate

[Yanoo_]

2 weeks ago my oil gauge suddenly started working after 4 years of showing absolutely no oil pressure. I was totally impressed by the old Lady :D

[16v_paddy]

With the exception of my car Paddy , it was bang on for me. Unless the external oil pressure tester was faulty .
I know what you are saying though, in most cases wildly inaccurate

It's not the accuracy that's a problem, it's more the fact that the information displayed on it is completely useless, the main pressure sensor at the front of the block is looking for 11-12 bar of pressure so a gauge going up to 6 isn't of much use :lol:

[PhilW]

As ever Paddy I bow to your knowledge 👍

When I looked at this, I assumed that the pressure switch at the front of the engine got full oil pressure from the pump before the oil hit the main bearings.
Then the pressue gauge took the pressure after the main bearings as it was on the way to the top end at a reduced pressure.
This was my personal logic and not mechanical expertise 😉.

Looks like I was talking bollocks as usual.

[16v_paddy]

That sounds about right to me as well tbh, it could be bollocks but I thought along the same lines as you :lol: