Originally Posted by
ryan roopnarine
Greetings all.
I have a 99 ford taurus with a 3l 12v v6. about 10k miles ago I had to get a headgasket replaced on it. the first oilchange after this, i had a problem (for two or three starts) where it would take between 1-1.5seconds after the engine started before the oil pressure light would go off. the oil change seemed to fix it. fast forward to now
I have about 185k miles on it, and was running a synthetic 5w20 for 6k miles. i was using the w20 instead of a 30wt oil because it reduces oil consumption in this car. about 300 miles before the oil change, i put a double dose of fuel injector cleaner into it, and drove it on the highway for about 250 miles. during the drive, in increments of 5-10 minutes, i'd shift out of overdrive and let it run at about 3500 rpm (as opposed to the normal 2300 rpm) for a total of 30 minutes. this was to try to solve a pinging problem that was re-emerging here in this wonderful florida heat. i didn't notice a delay when i stopped for gas about 100 miles before my destination. however, the next day, i found that with every cold start (temperature between 85-95 degrees outside) that it would take at least 1 second for the oil pressure light to go out. a change with 0w30 mobil 1 didn't seem to fix it. there are no other oil related issues with this car, I don't get a low oil pressure situation at idle, and the car uses about 6/10 of a quart per 6000 miles.
any guesses as to what this could be? dirty pickup screen? engine going south? am thinking that i need to swap out the pressure sensor and put a gauge on it to see what is going on, but it will be a couple of days before I can get around to doing so. thanks.