How do I check my Oil Pressure?

One of the questions I was asked recently is “How do I check my Oil Pressure?” Welcome to Mercie J Auto Care where compassion and craftsmanship come together. I’m Rick Smith, Master certified technician. First of all let’s talk about how important oil pressure is. Consider oil pressure to an engine as blood pressure is to your body. I’m not a doctor, but if you don’t have any blood pressure, if your heart quits, you’re probably not going to live long. Well it’s the same thing with your engine. If you lose oil pressure your engine can die literally within a minute. Very important, if you have any indication that you lost oil pressure, immediately shut the car off and get it towed. Do not drive it, don’t do anything. Make sure it gets fixed before you start that engine again. Unfortunately the answer to that question is not an easy one. Typically, oil pressure gets checked with gauge and we unscrew the oil pressure sending unit. Some of those are on the side of the engine block, sometimes on the timing cover somewhere near the oil filter. We unscrew that and screw the gauge in and we actually read what gauge says. There’s a couple ways that you might be able to check it first of all turn your key on with your engine off, some cars have a light. That light should be on, if you start it, the light should go off. That means you have some more pressure, you just don’t know how much. Some cars have a gauge and when your engine is say above 1500 RPM the oil pressure is going to be around 40 or 45. Having it idle on a hot day it might be as low as maybe 15 or 20 somewhere in there. So you can use a gauge on the car, if you have one of those scanners that you plug into the OBD two connector, you can sometimes see your pressure from that as well. The only true way to check it is with a gauge However, if you’re stranded somewhere and you think you’ve lost oil pressure and you just want to know if you have some. This is not a recommended way, but you can unscrew the oil filter a little bit and start the car, it should make a huge mess right away. Then you know it is at least pumping some oil. So I hope this has been helpful to you. Until next time, safe travels and blessings to you.