Alright, hopefully someone can give me some insight on my issue I am having here. My stratus just hit 200K mileage. So I've gotten the use out of it but if I can fix this I'd like to.

The car doesn't run any different then it did. Let me note that first.

Yesterday after I got out of work and let the car warm up the oil light came on. I stopped at the store and got a quart of oil and let the car cool down again. I was short a quart so it's obviously burning oil. Actually, last oil change was near 4K miles ago and I have only put in a quart (2 now because of yesterday) which I never had to do before I just though because of cold temperatures it might act up.

I do/am going ot need a power steering pump.

Ok, so here is the problem. The car will warm up, everything is fine and then I will put it in drive and the light will come on. It stays on for a few minutes and then it goes out and flickers only when the car is at idle or under 1000 rpms.

Any ideas or any positive answers. It's a 2000 Stratus 2.4L DOHC. It's just odd that the car runs fine but this light is on/flicker.

Thanks a whole bunch

 

It is your oil pressure switch, just fixed the same problem on mine.

 

Can you give me any information on this? Should I let a garage do it? Expensive? Where is it located on the vehicle?

 

It would be best for you to have someone install it because it would involve you going under the car which means proper safety proceedures and equipment to support the vehicle. You'll also need a special oil sender socket and the cost of the sender, you can look up yourself on any auto parts store web site.

 

I have a 1996 Dodge Stratus and mine was underneath at back of engine, just above oil pan. A lil bit of a pain but still was able to do. Can see if auto parts store loans the tool out. Just cost me part and sometime.

 

Mine has been doing this for the last couple of oil changes. Not burning oil or anything. If you're losing oil, you could check by the oil pressure sender. This sometimes fails and the oil leaking out can cause the light to come on.

I had the oil light come on a chevy cavalier with 250K+ miles, infact it would come on when I was doing 20mph or less. I had missed an oil change, Changed the oil a little more frequently and the problem started to go away. Sold the car and its still going strong @ 300k+.

If its bothering you, and you do your own oil changes you could try a higher viscosity oil for the summer, and go back to your regular one for the winter. I personally wouldnt worry about it whilst its occuring at <1000 rpm. If it starts to occur at higher rpms try playing around with the oil viscosity.

Here's a good description of whats going on (imo) :

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Your_oil_p...oes_it_at_idle


Incidently, I saw you had to change your compressor last year, could you answer any of my questions in this thread :

https://dodgeforum.com/forum/dodge-s...or-change.html

Did you flush anything ?

Did you change the accumulator and the expansion valve anything else ?
or did you just swap out the compressor / vacuum and recharge the system ?

Thanks in advance