Greetings,

I have a 2005 Pacifica Touring. Recently the oil indicator light started coming on. This happened the evening before a scheduled oil change so I just added it to the list when I brought in in for service. The light comes on everytime the car is started. If you shut the car off and turn it right back on the light goes out. This happens every time without variation. The service department said it "could be a bad wire or sensor" and wanted $450 to repair (I didn't go for it just yet). My feeling is that if it were a bad wire or part that the occurances of the light coming on would be more intermittent and that it wouldn't necessarily clear when starting the car the 2nd time. Any thoughts or similar experiences? Thank you.

Randman

 

hey rand,sound like you have a oil pressure problem more than a wire problem.could be the sensor getting lazy,or even leaking.i think the pressure is buildingslowly, the light comes on and when you restart the pressure has reached the point where it will turn off the light.what grade oil you running?and have you checked the level?moe

 

Hey Moe,

Thanks for the quick reply. The dealer just changed the oil Tuesday. It did it before they changed it and right after as well. I don't see any oil leaking anywhere under the hood or on the ground. Shouldn'tthe light go off without restarting once the pressure has come up? It doesn't, I can drive for miles and the light stays on. If I stop and re-start it goes off.

Randman

 

oh! i didn't know your drove it for miles before shutting it off.hummmmmmmmmmm let me think about this one.[sm=headbang.gif]

 

looks like it grounds thru the pcm which makes sense, because its not grounding on first start up,then when its turned off the pcm reset itself then sees the ground.try sending unit first.second would be scan it with drb on first start up.i beleive pcm is part of your power train warranty .moe

 

Moe,

That's awesome info....now I don't work on cars so bear with me here. The dealer did run a diagnostic ($89). If there was a problem with any of the items you propose would it have shown up there? If I suggest to them (the dealer techs)what you did in your 1st paragrah will they understand? If it's in the PCM there a chance it's under warranty still? Thanks again.