"low oil" light came on
"low oil" light came on 
ok, so i removed the pcm this weekend to route some new power wire through the gromet, put the pcm back, and continued to work on the rest of the stereo, didnt drive the car all weekend. hopped in the car this morning to go to work, and i notice that the low oil light is on. has never come on before, oil pressure looks good, car runs and sounds fine... so could this light be on cuz i messed with the PCM? or do i have an issue? i was going to go back outside and check the oil in the next hour or so, whenever i get my first break. any advice would be awesome! thanks guys prob just the sensor on the oilpan finally went bad.. its like a 17 dollar sensor(i think?) from gm dealer. my low oil light is on as well and has been on for several months now b/c i'm just too lazy to fix the sensor even though i have on sittin right here next to me on my office desk! lol check the oil first, then pull the sensor harness off the pan and check it for voltage.. very simple to do. im not 100% certain about voltage but i believe it should have atleast 5volts.... maybe someone else will chime in here
havent checked the oil yet cuz i havent had the chance since i got to work. But i have no leaks and it doesnt burn any... If its just the sensor, i could live with that. hopefully sometime before lunch i can run out there and check the oil.
Its not hard to break a wire when messing around with the PCM harnesses. The wires arent exactly the heaviest gauge in the world.
Ive heard of the level sensors going bad...but Ide do some testing to see for sure.
Im not sure how low you have to be for the light to come on. I imagine it would come on well before it got dangerously low. Well before you'd lose oil pressure from low oil as well. But for goodness sakes...dont even start the car again until you check that oil. It does not take long for the engine to start eating itself if it doesnt get what it needs oil wise. Probably should have checked it before even posting haha...might have answered your question pretty quick.
Good luck.
J.
Ive heard of the level sensors going bad...but Ide do some testing to see for sure.
Im not sure how low you have to be for the light to come on. I imagine it would come on well before it got dangerously low. Well before you'd lose oil pressure from low oil as well. But for goodness sakes...dont even start the car again until you check that oil. It does not take long for the engine to start eating itself if it doesnt get what it needs oil wise. Probably should have checked it before even posting haha...might have answered your question pretty quick.
Good luck.
J.
I guess you can check it cold but you should check it at operating temperature if you want to get the most accurate reading.
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Don't listen to this retard. You want to check the oil with the engine off for some time to let the oil settle. You check the transmission at operating temperature.
Are you guys re-tar-ded. Operating temperature means with the oil AT operating temperature. If I have to spell it out, it means, start the car, let it warm up, turn the car off, let the oil settle into the oil pan for a few minutes, then check the oil level. I was assuming everyone knew how to change oil and was just saying that it is better to check it with the engine oil at operating temperature as opposed to being cold. No where did I say check the oil while the car was operating.
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 11,330
Likes: 346
From: Jacksonville, FL (originally from Toronto Canada)
Ah yes... but they were surprised that anyone would feel it necessary to get the oil to operating temperature just to check the level. Doing an oil change is one thing - you want the oil warm so that it flows more easily and therefore drains from the pan faster. But checking oil level has nothing to do with oil temperature. The difference in volume between warm and cold is so small that if you're that close to being low then you need to add oil anyway.
