Just did an oil change for my Stratus at Jiffy Lube. Before I took it there, the oil was in dire need of changing (I baby the cars I drive, I just got this one...) Anyway, after the change and a fuel system cleaning, the car began to strangely idle at 500 RPMs at red lights. . This causes the oil light to illuminate. The engine is still quite enough that it doesnt get rough when it idles that low. Once I start to accelerate, the light disappears. This low idling only occurs when the car is in Drive. I took it back to the shop and they looked it over completely, tried to reproduce the problem, but couldnt. They told me it could be that because the engine fuel system is now super clean, the car might be idling lower, but that their service had nothing to do with the oil system possibly being messed up when i bought the car. They did put 5 30 W oil in there, so they offered to flush that out and change it to 10 30 W. I will take it back tonight and see what happens. The low idling did not happen before I took it to them, so maybe something they did, or forgot to do, is decreasing oil pressure. But how would that explain the idling? I dont know. Im kinda confused. I know some others have had this problem with the same symtoms. It seems to happen after oil changes or other work. Any light shed on this yet?

 

Hey, don't panic. Go underneath the car and pull the plug for the oil sender unit. If the sender is leaking oil into the plug, you need to replace it. Then you need to modify the plug for sender.

Take some electrical parts cleaner and spray out the connector. Then, notice the connector has two spots for wires, but there is only one wire. The side of the plug that has no wire in has a plastic plug covering the hole. Pull that plastic plug out, throw it away.

Reinstall it and your good. This might sound like bullcrap, but trust me, I do it all the time and it works. The theory behind it sounds even crazier, but this is how
Chrysler tells us to fix it.

Good luck.

 

I couldn't agree more with RIPSIGUY. This repair is usually done to 2.7 Intrepid engines but it is valid for your Stratus as well. Hey Rips, where you from? Shreveport, Louisiana here. Dealer lead tech. Mike

 

But why would the car be idling at 500-550? Even the fuel system flush they did shouldnt knock it that low...The low RPMs would probably account for the low oil pressure, maybe theres a leak somewhere...

Well, Ive got bigger problems right now. my ABS system is out and braking is scary when you have to push the pedal down real far...Still cant find anyone who will check this out for me without charging me a bundle.

 

When the car is warm, target idle in gear will go as low as 580 rpm. The only way to verify if target idle is reached is to put it on the scan tool.

Reply to Mike, Warwick RI, Service manager, Bald Hill Dodge.

 

I know this is gonna sound stupid, but reset the PCM. Disonect the negative battery terminal for a half hour and reconnect it. The PCM may just have to relearn. If that does not work, go with the other suggestions.

 

Well, I gave it a few days and the car seems to idle now just over 500 when at a red light, so no oil pressure light yet. What worries me is that the RPMs are going up and down (by increments of maybe 50-75) when Ive got my foot on the brakes. Of course once the fan kicks in the RPMS go up a bit, but when the car is just idling it seems the RPM needle doesnt sit still for very long. Is this normal on Mitsu engines? Or any car engines for that matter? Ive been driving big cars so long this is the first one to have an RPM meter on the dash.