Hi Volvo lovers,

I am a new Volvo XC90 owner/fan.

The issue is my lovely 2006 XC90 2.5T started to show the bizarre 'No Oil Pressure. Stop Engine.' dash board message red color.

First things I checked right after seeing that message.
Engine oil level - FINE (actually full).
Engine oil - CLEAN and recently replaced.

I drove 100 miles and the weather was peaceful 40f degrees (5c). The sign would come and off intermittently and stayed there for some time. We were luckily at the destination so we stopped the car and did our biz.

After a couple of hours we started the engine, drove a car, came back home driving 100 miles back without an issue.

But after a day, actually today, I saw the same message again. It was intermittently again and then would stay. If I restart the engine the message would go away but then would come back after sometime of driving.



So I called a couple of normal non-Volvo repair shops and they didn't know what the issue is and didn't even know why I would check the engine pressure. So OK pass.

I called Volvo dealer and he said if it is a 'low engine oil' message you can just top it up but if it is a 'engine pressure' message then the issue can be huge so he advised to tow the car in.

But I read Volvo dealers are notorious about 'making issues bigger' and have customers fix/pay. So I am not sure what to do right now.

People on Forums are saying to get oil pressure checked and then check old O-rings next.

Is there anyone actually experienced this and got this fixed?

Please advise what to do or/and what would be the cure.

Thx a lot in advance,
flatlander84

 

if your car had no oil pressure the engine would seize very soon and you would be needing a new engine. it is kind of like a person having no blood pressure. it may just be the pressure sensor is failing.

 

The sensor isn't a common failure, I'd put my money on oil pan seals. Start the car and check the oil with it running. If you see air bubbles on the dipstick, that is usually a good indication the oil pan seals need to be replaced.

 

Hi,

Thx for giving me the tips but no bubbles on the dipstick.. I checked when the car is cold and after car was run for half an hour.

 

I still doubt its the sensor, there could be sludge in the oil pan and oil pickup screen. Unfortunately there isn't much you can do without dropping the pan to inspect.

 

just got my car inspected by volvo dealership.

they are saying it might be the sludge in the engine blocking oil flow through the system that is causing the low oil pressure. they did a manual guage oil pressure test and interestingly the oil pressure is ok at idle but would drop when it goes above 4k rpm.

they wanna drop the pan and clean up the sludge. if it wont fix they would replace the oil pump.

i guess i wanna try out seafoam first and see if that will do the trick.

 

Yep, that sounds right. Hopefully its just sludge in the oil pan and not too bad in the upper end.

 

Man, you are nuts for driving the car and letting it idle with low oil pressure warnings. I'm glad you got it to the dealer to test. You have likely done some damage to the motor already but thankfully it's still running. Let the dealer drop the pan and see what they find. They may find that the pick up tube seal has fallen off or something simple so they can install a new one to put that behind you.

A lady I was helping had her low oil pressure lite coming on with her Lexus, two days later her motor locked up. End of that car and story.

 

Good pressure at idle. Low pressure at +4k rpm.

Oil light is not on actually. It comes extremely rarely: probably sludge problem is "starting" to cause the problems.