Oil light comes on after long drives, hard drives, and sometimes at idle. WHY? - Honda Prelude Forum

95_5speed · 08-03-2005, 06:51 PM

I drove an hour the first day I had the car on the road.. I had no problems I got to my destination and as I'm almost there.. the Oil light stayed on flashing repeatedly. I shut the car off and let it relax. Later on I started it up and drove it two hours, and it was just fine.

Today I Drove the car around slowly and easily.. The light starts to flicker and try to come on at idle at stop signs/lights. It stays on red, if I don't tap the gas just a little bit to keep it above about 1,000 rpm. This caused the Car to stall on me while pulling up behind a truck as I used my brakes to slow down because the son of a gun stopped short and there was no room to pass on the shoulder. I restarted the car and had the same problem.. oil light coming on or "trying to" at idle.

I go to my girlfriends house, and I park the car.. Again I come back and take it for a spin, drove 3 miles to see when it would come on. no light came on till I parked the car in her driveway at idle again it dropped.

I Left just now, to come home and I was getting onto an empty back road, I wanted to feel the cool breeze so I went through 4'th gear goosing it. I slowed down and as I did the oil light again started to flash repeatedly for a minute. I come up to the next stop light and its just barely flickering, so i hold the pedal so i have 1,100 rpms and the light stayed off. I made it home, but I do not want this to keep going on it isnt good I'm sure!

I am using Mobil 1 5W30 Fully synthetic, The oil is full I keep checking it.. and I do not know when this oil pump was replaced, if ever. I neglected to do that figuring it wouldn't have this sort of problem.

Sorry for the long post, I just wanted everyone to understand sometimes it will be on, and other times it will not come on, or will just flicker like it wants to come on. Any help, hints, suggestions, relate to this etc.. MUCH appreciated.

Thanks in advance, ~ Brett R.

Xander · 08-04-2005, 03:36 AM

I can only think of oil pump or the oil pick up in the pan may be blocked.

95_5speed · 08-04-2005, 08:20 AM

I'll drop pan again, This really sucks .. is it because im using a 5w30 thin oil in the dead heat of summer?

DR · 08-04-2005, 08:37 AM

You might want to put a real oil pressure guage on there and still see if you have low oil pressure. That would rule out a stock sensor problem. I've had an oil pump fail but when it did I had no oil pressure at any RPM. How many miles are on this engine??

95_5speed · 08-04-2005, 11:21 AM

I'm definitly getting an Oil press. gauge soon, I like them in all of my vehicles. This is a mostly rebuilt engine i just finished and it has 140,800.

95_5speed · 08-05-2005, 11:59 AM

Changed from 5W30 Mobil 1 synthetic to 10W30 Mobil 1 synthetic and drove maybe 50 miles.

Oil light has yet to turn on, even at low idle and full temperature!

Did a lot of research on Viscosity ratings and such and came to the conclusion that 5W30 is way to thin for the extreme temperatures summer provides.

red92si · 08-05-2005, 12:14 PM

How hot is it getting in Northern NJ?

I only ask because it gets pretty darn hot here in SoCal (90-105) and I run 5w30 all summer w/out problem.

95_5speed · 08-05-2005, 07:46 PM

well, its been around that for the past week here.. I also don't have the best running prelude yet this car was not taken care of .. "ever" if i could say so. for the 140,000 miles I didnt have it, as far as i know it was abused and neglected, and now it needs help.

But, the 10W30 did help, no idle drop today, no oil pressure drop, and one less headache for me!