Oil Pressure Switch

The Oil Pressure Switch monitors how many PSI your oil system is running and sends out a signal. A single vehicle can have more than one oil pressure sending unit.

In older vehicles the Oil Pressure switch sends a signal to a gauge or light. If your car is equipped with an oil gauge you can see the status of the oil pressure. If you have a warning light it should light up when you start the car, shut off when oil pressure builds (as engine and oil pump turn), then only light again if a low oil pressure condition is detected.

On newer cars the Oil pressure sending units can send a signal to a gauge or light and/or also send a signal to the vehcile's computer. The signal to the computer would most likely lead to the computer shutting down the engine if low oil pressure is detected.

On new vehicles an Oil Pressure switch is best diagnosed through the vehicle's on board diagnosis system.

If you have an older vehicle and you are trying to diagnose a simple 1 wire sending unit to a gauge, you can ground the lead that goes to the oil pressure switch (unplug it and touch it to metal with the key on). This should cause your gauge to read at it's highest level. If the gauge does this, but when re-connected, with the engine running, reads zero then you either have a bad sending unit or no oil pressure.

• 
  
  The 1A Auto Team
  

For more than 50 years, the Green family has been installing and using the same high quality auto parts that you'll find on our website. We actually use the parts we sell, and we've been selling online since 1999. Our company's mission is to make your car projects go smoothly, and to become your trusted source for auto parts. To this end, we treat our customers like family.

We employ USA based, knowledgeable support technicians. They'll help you through your project. We always make sure you get the right part. And we boast the industry's most generous returns policy. You won't find a company more passionate about auto parts than 1A Auto.