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I've got a Year 2000 Fiat Punto Sporting Mk2 16V 1.2 Petrol Car.
I've had this car since new and looked after it and never had a break down in 19 years. This car is used in London so I do very few mile son it each year, approx 2,000 miles a year as I main drive to the train station and use public transport. Maybe take it on the motorway once or twice a month at most.
The other week I got in my car to drive to the train station which is only about 5 minutes drive away and for the first time ever I noticed the Low Oil Pressure Light remained on. when I came home from the station it was still on. I've not driven the car since and it's parked at home on my driveway.
I check the oil levels very frequently and checked once again and it was 3/4 up the top of the dipstick, so there wasn't low oil.
In order to fix the problem I tried the following, none of which has worked so far.
I changed the oil (Castrol Magnetec 10W 40)
I change the Oil Filter (Mann Filter)
I changed the Oil Pressure Switch (which operates as normally closed circuit at rest)
After changing these 3 things the light still remains on.
I also tried testing the car with the wire that plugs into the oil pressure switch unplugged and the low oil pressure light remains on.
So I am thinking perhaps this is an electrical issue?
I did do a test with an electrical meter of the reading from the centre pin of the oil pressure switch lead (i.e. the wire that normally plugs into the back of the switch) to the car body and it read 17.2 when the meter was set to 200k. So not exactly a full on short but there is a reading there. Someone else who owns a similar car tested theirs and got a similar reading, so I think this is normal for the car?
Any ideas what to do next? Or what the cause might be?
I'm hoping to get hold of a mechanical oil pressure tester and use that to see what reading it gives, however the one I've ordered I saw just got two bad reviews on Amazon both people saying it didn't read anything when they tried it. However I ordered this particular unit because it was the only one with a gauge that goes up to 140 PSI, all the others read 0 to 500 PSI so they'd be very hard to see any small PSI readings.
I've had this car since new and looked after it and never had a break down in 19 years. This car is used in London so I do very few mile son it each year, approx 2,000 miles a year as I main drive to the train station and use public transport. Maybe take it on the motorway once or twice a month at most.
The other week I got in my car to drive to the train station which is only about 5 minutes drive away and for the first time ever I noticed the Low Oil Pressure Light remained on. when I came home from the station it was still on. I've not driven the car since and it's parked at home on my driveway.
I check the oil levels very frequently and checked once again and it was 3/4 up the top of the dipstick, so there wasn't low oil.
In order to fix the problem I tried the following, none of which has worked so far.
I changed the oil (Castrol Magnetec 10W 40)
I change the Oil Filter (Mann Filter)
I changed the Oil Pressure Switch (which operates as normally closed circuit at rest)
After changing these 3 things the light still remains on.
I also tried testing the car with the wire that plugs into the oil pressure switch unplugged and the low oil pressure light remains on.
So I am thinking perhaps this is an electrical issue?
I did do a test with an electrical meter of the reading from the centre pin of the oil pressure switch lead (i.e. the wire that normally plugs into the back of the switch) to the car body and it read 17.2 when the meter was set to 200k. So not exactly a full on short but there is a reading there. Someone else who owns a similar car tested theirs and got a similar reading, so I think this is normal for the car?
Any ideas what to do next? Or what the cause might be?
I'm hoping to get hold of a mechanical oil pressure tester and use that to see what reading it gives, however the one I've ordered I saw just got two bad reviews on Amazon both people saying it didn't read anything when they tried it. However I ordered this particular unit because it was the only one with a gauge that goes up to 140 PSI, all the others read 0 to 500 PSI so they'd be very hard to see any small PSI readings.