This morning I was driving to work and noticed for the first time that my oil pressure gauge was showing me at about 70 PSI at idle and 110 PSI and over at highway speeds. This is an all stock car. I have never seen the car do this before. No mods or tinkering under the hood lately either.

What would cause this? Is it the oil pressure sensor on the block or maybe a faulty gage in the dash?

Anyone ever see a problem like this before? I was half expecting to hear a loud POP of something blowing on the way to work when I first saw this. The car isn`t smoking like oil is getting thru the oil control rings IF my pressures were really this high. Also, there is NO way the car could have oil pressure that high at idle! LOL!

Where should I look first?

Thanks for any suggestions!

 

Put a mechanical guage on it and see what it reads. Usually the sender goes bad. Race engines run higher pressure than what your experiencing with no problem.

 

Same thing happened to my stock 1988 NA today. Sitting idling waiting for the car wash it went over 110 psi. I shut it off for a minute and restarted; still a little high but not so bad. I got the oil changed at WalMart a week ago..... I will see what it does tomorrow.

I will see if I still have a mechanical gauge sitting around.

 

Figured it out tonight.

Took the mating connector off of the sending unit and sprayed it out with Gunk engine degreaser and the tip of the sending unit also. Wiped off both after spraying and everything appears to be normal now.

Glad that was all that it was.