I have read a couple similar posts, but my car does something a bit different than the cars in the other post. I have a 2002 Neon bare bones model. Everything works fine until the car comes up to operating temperature, then the oil light will start coming on when I bring the car to a stop and the engine drops to idle. Here's where the difference comes in from the other posts... the longer I drive, the sooner the light comes on. Maybe about 15 minutes later, the light will begin to come on almost as soon as I let off the gas, then maybe about 15 minutes after that, it's nearly impossible to get the light to go off unless I've got the car at about 6k rpm. To top it off, when the car starts to do this, the temp increases in temp to just slightly higher than normal operating temp. This leads me to believe that the oil may not actually be circulating the engine properly. Any ideas? Oil Pump gone bad?

 

Well you can try a few things. Take the pressure sensor out and hook up a mechanical gauge to see if your actually getting pressure or not. Or you can take a chance and just
replace the sensor and clean out the connector real good, since they are a pretty cheap part I'm sure.

 

So the pressure sensor could actually cause the light to come on more often as the engine temp increases?

 

Yes I've had it where the light would come on when the engine is warm and go away when it's revved up and just be a sensor. Usually you can tell when the sensor is bad because when you unplug the connector it will be full of oil.

 

Well, I'll find out early tomorrow. I got the part ordered, and I can pick it up when they open tomorrow. So here's hoping it's that easy. The thing that worries me is that the car get's hotter when the light comes on which would suggest to me that there's more friction in the engine due to poor oil circulation.

 

Make sure you clean the connector out real well before you put it back together or your light will be back on.

Generally if it's a mechanical problem the light will be on when warm because the oil gets thinner as it heats up.