3.0 Low Oil Pressure

[BoostFreeak]

Hey guys,
Today while driving home I got off the freeway after being on it for about 30 minutes and after driving through the city for 5 minutes or so I noticed my oil pressure warning light came on. I immediately pulled over and checked the oil level and everything looked good. I started it and let it idle for a minute and everything seemed good so I drove home, about 5 minutes, and the light never came back on. The car has about 125k miles on it and has been maintained religiously since new. I replaced the oil with 5w30 full synthetic about 1500 miles ago and that is what it has ran its entire life with no problems. I need to drive a 400 mile trip in 4 days and now this of course happens. Im not sure what I should do first, I'm assuming I should check pressure with a mechanical gauge to ensure proper pressure but wanted to get some opinions on the problem and see if anyone has had any experience with this problem.

[BoostFreeak]

Does anyone know where the pressure sensor is on the 3.0 motor?

[Spike00513]

Wonder if oil choice matters. I used 0w40 or 5w40, w/ Mann 930/21. When I dropped the pan to clean and re-seal it, there wasn't a lot of sludge.
Could it be a sensor problem, or actual low pressure? The upper cylinder valley has oil check valves but IDK if they need replacing.
Only time I recall ever having low oil pressure, which is the flashing red light, is when the level was low on some random cheap dino oil especially during a turn where I assume it would slosh sideways.
I heard that with 3L's, the way to check pressure is with a gauge kit hooked up to the oil pan or something.

[coffeysm]

You need a mechanical gauge, but I think you can use VCDS as well. There is a TSB that has a bunch of troubleshooting steps 171006 Engine - Oil Pressure Lamp On/Oil Pressure Below Spec. It goes over testing the oil pressure, using VCDS, and replacing some check valves in the valley as well.

There is the oil pressure sender as well that can go bad. Can't tell you off the top of my head the location, but it's probably som

[john_gonzo]

Some good info here: 3-0-AVK-oil-pressure-check-valve

Also, low oil pressure can be caused by bad O-rings on the oil pump intake pipes. Item 17, Qty 4 in this diagram.

[SJorge3442]

Pretty low miles for a low oil pressure issue. I wonder if this is a sensor issue or not. I believe SlickFix's problem ended up being a faulty sensor. He went through the effort of changing everything in the vally and it didnt make a difference. Any chance you may have bumped the oil pan/sensor on something recently?

[deyrag]

The oil pressure sensor is screwed into the back of the oil filter housing. HF has a cheap test kit that has the correct M10 thread adapter if you want to check the actual pressure.

[SJorge3442]

The oil pressure sensor is screwed into the back of the oil filter housing. HF has a cheap test kit that has the correct M10 thread adapter if you want to check the actual pressure.

d'oh! Thats what I get for reading this half awake and formulating incomplete thoughts. Was mixing up pressure and level sensor. DERP!

[BoostFreeak]

Thanks guys, I am planning on testing pressure today at the pressure sensor location and will report back! I am really hoping the issue is just a sensor or I'll be finding a 1.8t to replace this car and just get rid of it. I have a pile of maintenance receipts in the last 10k miles and this is making me nervous everything is going wrong at once.

[BoostFreeak]

So I looked on ecs and there are 2 different oil pressure sensors apparently, the gray one on the filter housing and apparently there is a black one somewhere that sends the info to the cluster for the warning light. Does anyone know where the black one is? Ecs says the black one reads 1.2-1.6 bars, but the gray one on the filter housing reads between 0.75-1.05 so I'm concerned if I test pressure at the gray one it will be low because pressure is supposed to be lower there. If anyone knows where the black one is I'd really appreciate it.

[deyrag]

You need this one

https://www.ecstuning.com/b-genuine-...ck/06a919081j/

I think their listing is a little mixed up between 1.8 and 3.0

[shurur9]

I will take the hit for the necro-bump.

I had intermittent low oil pressure light and it was the sensor.
The oil was leaking through the sensor housing and into the pin and connector.