Hi everyone, amazing site here that I have just discovered. I have browsed the forums, and can't find any thread that seems to relate to my problem. I have a 98 Stratus ES with the V6, 130K miles with an oil pressure light issue. This all began about a year and a half ago when switching back to factory recommended 5w30, original owner always ran 10w30. The light would flicker once in a while transmission was engaged, and stopped, with the load on the engine, only at low idle, about 550 rpm or so. Switched back to 10w30 and the issue went away for about 5 months. Issue started back up, just a little flicker, added a quart of lucas, went away again for about 3 months. The issue started up again about a month ago, switched up to the highest I felt safe with for this engine, 5w40 with a quart of lucas, that seemed to work for about a week, now the light is pretty common, as soon as the engine heats up and things get moving, it starts to come on at about 800 rpm, even when cruising at about 15 mph in the neighborhood. It seems like the engine is pretty sound for the miles it has, take away this issue. So basically, I really seem to think it is more of a sensor issue more than anything, due to the amount of time I have jerry-rigged the issue with a thicker oil with no apparant adverse effects. I do the oil changes myself, and the oil always looks decent coming out, and doesn't burn/leak a drop of what I put in. So basically, please give me a game plan, where do I begin, oil pressure sending unit, pump, worse? Thanks so much in advance, I will post what I end up doing here either way. Take care!

-Adam

 

I have a 95 Cirrus and have the same problem. I've done the same attempt at a fix (10W30 oil, added a qt of Rislone, etc.). I've done a lot of searching and see many times where replacing the sending unit which is located by the oil filter fixes the problem. I haven't done it yet for the same reasons you mention, the engine seems strong and has no indication of an oil pressure problem. In fact I've taken the oil fill cap off with the engine running at idle and it's spits a considerable amount of oil out of the hole, so I really am very confident that this is just an indication problem. The sending unit is only about $10 and takes a whopping 10 minute to replace, I just havn't gotten around to it yet.

HTH...maybe you'll get someone here who has actually done the repair.

 

Replaced oil pressure sending unit, problem fixed. Very easy, hardest part was getting the wire harness off the old to unscrew it, clip for the harness was turned upwards, have to get to the unit from bottom... was a little bit of a cramped headache. Got the harness off, it was obviously cracked, and oil was all in the harness, cleaned up, put in the new unit. $9.99 at autozone. Thanks for the help Jnicho, I had an idea that is what I should start, and you reassured me!