The meter hasn't moved since I got the car, but today the oil light came on?

Guess I just need to top off the oil... right?

 

the oil gauge is not for oil level but oil pressure. Do NOT rely on it though, it's literally a dummy gauge. It only senses if the car has any pressure (ie; the car started) and then it goes to the exact same spot all the time.

A functional oil pressure gauge woudl be CONSTANTLY moving as you accelerate / decelerate. (trust me, I installed an oil psi gauge)

IF your oil light is on, top off ASAP.

 

How often do you check the dipstick?

 

Please in your manual the engine is oil injected and will need some added occasionally. There is a dip stick thats needs to be checked. It has a range of 1.8 quarts between the low and high. The harder you push the engine the more thats injected. My self I just get it changed when it's getting close to low, it's usually around 2-3K miles. Or every 3-4 months if you have not driven it enough.

 

Right

You should check it as often as you gas it, until you are comfortable with it's usage. I have an early VIN, and my car never really seemed to use oil, so I started premixing in the gas. Now I run a custom tune with the oil metering pump adjusted up to deliver more oil.

 

I'm already premixing with Idemitsu and FP+, but for some reason it slipped my mind to check the oil level... Although I do carry a small bottle of oil in the trunk.

I'll check the dip stick and top off once I get home tonight.

Thanks!

 

people have no idea what they got.

 

I gotz got
car ate like .7 litres lol
couldnt find the dipstick for like 5 mins lol

im so used to my bike, only oil, no other fluids and a viewing window that showed the level and condition of the oil. w00t w00t i miss it

 

Please sell your car now!

You're right ny, people really have no idea what they got. That makes 2 people 2 days, that I have heard say something about the oil pressure gauge not being accurate when relating to oil level...the first person was within arms reach so I smacked him the f'ing head.

 

i realized today it said OIL-P, interesting...

 

Is there any way to change the sensor that feeds this gauge or something simple that allows it to actually work properly?

 

^yes, buy an actual gauge instead. The one in the dash literally monitors nothing...it's just for looks.

 

not possible to mod the OEM pressure gauge.
if it is, no one that I know of has done it yet.

probably just easier to get an aftermarket gauge pod. Racing Beat has a nice one

 

That's not true. It doesn't give the actual pressure, but it does give yes/no on whether you have pressure. Same as an idiot light. That's not the same as nothing.

Ken

 

The pressure sending unit has one wire so I'm pretty sure ken-x8 is exactly right and the oil pressure gauge just tells you on or off. The oil level light however is pretty accurate form my experience. I have had it come on at autox a couple of times and it was low but just below the mid level mark, nothing serious.

 

lol !

if you guys want to put it that way then yeah, its a functional gauge lol !

I dont understand why Mazda even bother to install that. I mean, you will get pressure even when you have only 1 quart of oil in the whole system. This gauge is totally useless.

 

^Thanks man...I still say it does nothing.

 

Yeah I recently helped a member reinstall his pressure sending unit and I was wondering I could just eliminate it all together and run my gauge straight to that location.

 

You're not a fan of binary? Kind of fun, though, that they chose to use an analog display for binary information.

Maybe you'll get pressure with one quart, maybe you won't. But if you do, you won't when you go around a corner and the pump sucks air.

IMHO an idiot light would be better than this binary mode analog gauge since it would light up and catch your attention. Much like 9krpmrx8's oil level light came on when he was autox'ing.

Ken

 

Definitely, its gets your attention. but having a real gauge with a warning light is way better

 

to me, the Pressure gauge is totally useless. The oil level light is close to useless.

Both basically an on/off switch. just at different location.

I wonder how much does it cost for Mazda to install the P-Gauge. Can I ask them to give me a refund cuz its 100% useless ?

The Oil level light is useful only when Im doing oil change ...

 

If the stock oil gauge works like an oil warning light, then it's not completely useless. It's a pressurized system, so per say if for example, the oil plug came off down the road, it would drop in theory immediately to zero in a rather short period of time. You'd just have to be looking at the gauge obviously to see it. If it works like it should, then yes 1 quart will matter, and will be detectable when the pressure in the system is lost. That is if it works like it should.

Just need some numbers here to what the min. pressure is before it detects that. Some of the simple race cars in the past only had oil warning lights including my own since oil pressure depending on the engine wasn't an issue with simple N/A engines. We just wanted a warning light in case something happened to know immediately and shut the engine off. This isn't something you just hook in-line, but is an electrical device screwed into a basic hole that gave the feedback immediately when it detected pressure being lost. Now with bigger block engines with injection and ported, etc, all that crap yes, we needed to know what the pressure was to stay above a certain level for performance.

 

Looking at the gauge or not your engine would be fucked.

 

it's useless, trust me.
I've seen my oil PSI drop to 8 and yet the oem gauge stays put. at 80 psi, it's still the same.

 

That depends. If it works as it should and drops right when pressure is lost, and you act accordingly to shut your engine off then the damage would be wear and minimal at that. But again, a light may come on the dash for the gauge when it's low but you have to be paying attention to react immediately to it.