The light just turned ON yesterday after I restarted the car. I have looked for topics here regarding this. I will try to diagnose it myself before bringing it to the dealer (which could be expensive). One of the suggestions from my Haynes manual is a bad oil pump. If this is the case, then I shouldn't drive the car with a bad oil pump. Any body knows how to determine if the oil pump is not working?
Check with Autozone or your local auto parts store and see if they have an OBD-II reader that you can borrow for free. That will pull the code from the car to see what the problem is.
Oil pump is made of two simple rotary gears. Very reliable. Large pump clearance can lead to low oil pressure, but you will usually hear valve taps with that. I suspect if that's even your source of the problem unless the car didn't get oil changes or you have the oil sludge problem with oil passages all plugged up. I doubt that for now.
Leaving a gas cap loose can cause it, if your pump was bad you would hear alot of noise from the motor. I would not worry just go to an autostore and get it read free.
Question: if you don't know the code, how can the manual "suggest" a bad oil pump?
If you do the work yourself, double-check the diagnostic code the AutoZone gives you. I had the light go on once in my '02, went to AutoZone, and they ran it and told me I'd need to replace the Catalytic Converter. I took it to the dealer at the end of my trip and it was a MAF sensor; they replaced it, been fine ever since.
So draw what conclusions you will, but double-check.
Thanks all for their input. Engine oil looks a bit low, so add some. Also tighten the gas cap again. Reset engine light by pulling the battery cable. Has been running fine without light turning on again for the last few days. So hopefully problem fixed.
A few people have been responding that "yes, it could be the oil pump." Not to be a grump, but let me repeat:
If the "check engine" light (not other lights, that one) comes on, there are about 25 things that could cause it. Just saying "it could be a bad oil pump" is just as valid as saying, "it could be the gas cap" or "it could be the MAF sensor."
Gist: until you get a proper diagnosis, you won't know! Do you really want to go replace the oil pump because that "could be" what caused the light to come on?
Take it to the dealer, have a proper diagnosis, have them fix it (no diagnosis fee that way), drive away with peace of mind.
There's nothing worse that being on a longish trip and having that damn light come on cause you just can't ignore it. Even though it means "take it to the dealer when you get a chance," every time you look at the speedo cluster you see that light and start worrying about "what could this be?" And there's lots of stuff it "could be."
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