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Greetings,

Can someone please tell me about the oil pressure gauge - how to read it and what do the readings indicate?

Thanks,

Madonna

Hi Madonna,

It depends on what car you have.

Pre 95 the gauge actually was a working gauge showing the oil pressure in the engine. It used kg/cm3 for memory which can be converted to PSI.

From 95 till 04? the gauge is just a dummy. It just acts like a warning light show "0" or an "ok" value.

The NC is again a dummy gauge but is made to took like it does things by the car computer or something.


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so why did the later models just grt a dummy gauge

Budget cuts I believe.


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rossburns wrote:so why did the later models just grt a dummy gauge

Ha!! Isn't that just the million $ question?! A "legendary" sports convertible with a dummy OPG and a suss Temp gauge!

I suppose on the positive side it does give us something else to mod ...

rossburns wrote:so why did the later models just grt a dummy gauge

Supposedly customers were complaning that their oil pressure gauge was going crazy, moving up and down as they were driving.
To stop these complaints, Mazda opted for the "dummy gauge" which which defaults to a steady value and moves beyond this when there is a problem.
Your water temperature gauge is the same too, it stays at the temperature (about 1/3 on an SE) and moves to about 2/3rd (on an SE) when you've got serious heating issues - there's no linear movement that reflects the actual temperature.

Personally I think it was because the dummy gauge is cheaper to manufacture.

I was pleasantly surprised to see the oil pressure gauge moving in the 1.6L NA6 I drove last Christmas.

mine a 91 model and yes the oil pressure gauge, but so does my water temp gauge which worries me