1. Home
  2. Volkswagen, everything else
  3. Can Operating Temperature Effect Oil Pressure?

Can Operating Temperature Effect Oil Pressure?

Take a tub of lard and put it in a cooking pot. Set your stove to the highest temp and let the lard "cook" for 20 minutes.

As the temp rises you will notice it goes from a solid to a liquid, in other words, as it gets hotter, it gets "thinner".

While your motor oil doesn't ever turn into a solid at room temp like lard does, it will get thinner as it heats up. You can also witness this by draining the oil out when it is hot VS when it is cold.

Maybe you should try some 20w50 oil and see if that doesn't help. I would suggest getting the oil pressure tested. Make some calls and see what shops charge for this test. Or, run down to Autozone and buy a gauge and test it yourself, it isn't that hard to do (we can walk you though it).

Later.

Reply to
Pencilneck
Loading thread data ...

Yes regular oil thins as it getts hot. As for the 3000 rpm part, VW uses two sensors, one for ideling and one for over I think 2000 rpms. One sensor is on the end of the cylinder hear and the other is on the oil filter bracket, there maybe two or a dual one if you have a pressure guage also on your gti. You may be using the wrong oil. Most people consider 10-40w oil normal. Not vw at least for your vintage. 10-xx is only good up to 50 degrees f. 20-30 or 20-40 is better. However synthetic oil and newer vw's are another story. I use 5-40 synthetic in my 99.5 jetta tdi.

Joe R

Reply to
Joe R

I have an '83 Rabbit GTI. The oil pressure light comes on at about 3000 RPM, but ONLY after the car warms up. This seems odd to me, and I suspect that the temperature is somehow affecting the sensor. However, I am not a trained mechanic, so I was wondering if anybody had any thoughts on this.

Reply to
Fred Mann

Excellent, so far! Thanks!- I just received a guage which I bought off ebay. I have not yet used it, so I don't know if I have the right adapter - there's about 5 or 6 adapters in there. Anyway, I also have a Chilton's manual, and it says the pressure should be 28psi at 2000 rpm. It does not say where to connect the guage, though. I see the fitting on the top of the oil filter bracket. Will I need to hook it to both sensor locations or just the bracket on the oil filter? Also, will the single measurement at 2000 rpm really be sufficient, or will I need to test it at idle and higher rpm. Also, I corrected the title of my post for all you usage buffs (from "Effect" to "Affect") Thanks again, Fred Mann

Reply to
Fred Mann

Also, what about the idea of adding something like "Smoke Away" to the oil? (An oil thickener?) Will this help keep the pressure up? Thanks again, Fred

Reply to
Fred Mann

MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.