I was leaving a wal mart parking lot last night and hit those yellow bump strips, and my oil light flashed two times and went off. Today coming home for lunch it started flashing when i hit halfway down my drive way, lots of dips and bumps though. When i parked it stayed blinking. I have been taking out my MFR a lot lately to sodler it, and now seeing that that hasnt helped for a second time, to keep it out of the heat till a new one arrives.
Could this be a sensor/switch issue? If so where can i find this piece that could be getting jiggled around to change it out? i know flashing isnt good, but the fact that it only happened twice last night and again when i hit a bumpy path is curiuos.
I am currenlty over 300 miles on my oil change, i was coming from wal mart last night to get it done but they said they were not taking anymore ppl for the day
If i am due to change my sensor and switch, i know they’re cheap, but where are they on my car? how do i get them off?
I am using a 1991 integra RS, which turned 285k over the weekend. woo
Is your regular oil service interval 3k miles? If so, going over by 300 is nothing. Personally I think changing your oil ever 3k is overkill. Factory manual recommends something along the lines of 6-7k when using conventional oil.
Have you checked your oil since your last oil change? It’s going to be natural for your car to burn a certain amount between oil changes. Possibly they did not fill it enough on the last oil change?
Do you park in the same spot in a driveway or garage? If so, have you noticed any oil leaking onto the ground? If you don’t park in the same spot, start looking whenever you leave wherever you’re parked.
Pop your hood, start looking for oil leaks. Get the car on jackstands, start looking for leaks.
It’s either leaking or being burnt, now you need to figure out which.
well i work at a bank and park in the same spot every day, 5 days a week. I have not seen any leaks on the ground, but i suppose i should be checking now.
Where would be good spots to start checking if i get the car up on a couple stands? cuz i have no idea where to start.
I do wonder if i have been burning THAT much all this time and the wal mart has just been putting down full before service cuz they didnt feel like checking…
And yes, i do change at every 3k, just cuz of the cars age, but i suppose i should keep putting in oil and take it in every 5k or so just cuz of the oil filter?
How long have you had the car? If you’ve had it for more than a few months and actually use it on a regular basis you should already have a very good idea of how much oil the car burns. That is just something everyone needs to know about their car. You really trust Walmart with the health of your engine?
When you first buy a car you should change the oil or at least make sure it’s topped off. Then start checking your oil at every gas fill up, or at least once a week. Do this until you KNOW how much oil the car uses and can put yourself on a more structured schedule. For instance maybe the car burns a lot of oil and you need to add oil every time you get gas. Or maybe you know it doesn’t burn hardly any and you can make it 3-5k before needing to check the oil. If you already knew this then that would have already allieviated about half of your troubleshooting up to now.
OK, that’s enough general info.
Basically start looking everywhere. Pop your hood and just start looking around the cylinder head and block. Hopefully you keep up on cleaning your car’s engine bay. If you do, then it will be easy to spot any new leaks. If your bay has 15yrs of dirt in it, it’s going to be hard to see anything. I would recommend a good cleaning if that is the case.
From above you should look in the following areas:
valve cover gasket
cam end plug
distributor o-ring
When up on jackstands, again, look everywhere and just see what you can find. Again, clean is good, if it’s dirty and greasy down there you may not be able to find much. But usually if it’s leaving a puddle when parked you should see very fresh oil somewhere from below.
From below you should look at:
oil pan gasket
oil pan drain plug
oil filter
flywheel cover (if the front main seal is leaking, it will show up here)
lower timing belt cover (if the main rear seal is leaking it will show up here)
That’s pretty much what I do. I’m careful of course not to spray any water into the intake, distributor or anything electrical for that matter. i.e: fuse panel, alternator, etc… Also, be careful not to get water into your plug wire sleeves, but if you do it can be blown out with compressed air if you have an air compressor. Everything else is fair game. I’ve never really had any problems.
Actually, you pretty much can. As long as you’re not using high pressure water.
If you have a stock intake make sure it’s all well connected so that no water can get inside.
You can cover the distributor to keep water out of there, but really if the plug wires are good and you have a fresh distributor cap gasket you should be fine. I never cover mine anymore.
Make sure your plug wires are making a good seal on the valve cover so that water isn’t going to get down into where the spark plugs are.
My general technique:
hose down engine bay, use gentle flow over critical areas (distributor, plug wires, fuse box…) and a bit more pressure in safe areas. All of this is controlled by my finger, I don’t use hose nozzels or sprayers.
Spray down with simple green. Depending on how dirty the bay is and what you want to do you can spray it before getting it wet to let the simple green be more concentrated, feel free to experiment.
Scrub. Scrub. Scrub. Use parts cleaning brushes, rags… different tools for different areas.
Rinse a bit or just apply more simple green, scrub more. Repeat as long as it takes to get it good and clean.
Rinse away all soap. Towel off if you want, or you can also start the car so the engine warms up and evaporates some of the water.
To make things shiny you can apply armorall/STP type products (there are many good suggestions online) to certain areas. You can also apply WD-40, but be careful, that stuff is flamable.
I wouldn’t suggest shining things up until you find your leak and fix it. Applying any sort of grease like that could lead to difficulty finding oil leaks.
Once your bay is good and clean it doesn’t take much to keep it that way. A quick soap, scrub and rinse every now and then. Whenever you do maintenance work or remove anything from the car make a habit to clean all parts involved. Keeping a clean car (including engine, suspension, undercarriage…) makes working on it a lot easier and more enjoyable.
