My oil pressure gets down to 12 psi when it'* hot. It goes up a little when I change it, but comes back down. Does running thicker oil help? Or does it just result in higher pressure at the pressure sender, but more or less do nothing for you? If it is a good thing to do when bearings seem to be getting weak, what oil should I use?

What brand of oil and filter are you using? How many miles on the car?

I've been using Mobil 1 10W-30 most of the time, and a Mobil 1 filter. A couple years ago, I used 5W-30 for a while. A few miscellaneous oil changes were with normal oil here and there. I don't know what was used before I bought it at 64k. It now has almost 163k.

I wouldn't treat a serious synptom like that with a patch. First of all, get a mechanical gauge on the engine and see where your OP really is.

My next thought would be to pull the pan and see if the pickup is partially plugged.

If your oil pressure is actually low and the pickup isn't plugged, you might be getting to the area where main and rod bearing clearances are increasing due to mileage wear. This will drop oil pressure drastically.

I'm pretty sure it is actually that low. It goes up to 40 psi with a little gas or any time I'm moving.


If I'm gonna swap the heads anyway, maybe I should just rebuild another, then swap it in. Pisses me off that I just did the timing chain, though.

My '99 has 135K and runs at 60 psi at speed. It seldom idles below 40 psi, even when hot. If the reading is accurate, you've got a problem.

Does it use any oil between changes? ring wear and bearing wear roughly correlate.

In the last two weeks, I've lost half a quart. I've been using Engine Restore. My last oil change didn't have any in it, and I seemed to lose more. I've also got some small leaks, so I can't tell for sure where I'm losing the most oil.

Heard stories of synthetic causing oil consumption although I never tried it.

Mine wasn't techinically "low", but it got lower than I liked to see. I went from 30 wt to 40 wt, and it steadied right out.

Not saying you should, but that'* what I did.

Will the thicker oil prolong inevitable bearing death?