Scary Oil pressure?

[JonnyH]

What is normal oil pressure?

I test drove an Avant last night. When it was started up it hit over 5 bar immediately, and took ages to drop down - this was at idle. On the road the oil pressure was between 4 and 5 with no load, and up at 5 with my foot down. After I'd been driving it a while I let it idle, and the pressure was down at 2 bar. It went back up to 4-5bar when I continued down the road.

I noticed also that the oil temp was very low - 70 deg C. Would this be because the oil temp sensor was faulty, or is it related in any way to the high oil pressure (perhaps the same fault is causing both)...

[Jamo]

Nothing wrong with the oil pressure, looks normal when using 10w60 oil.

Did the gauge move at all?

[dan_b]

Those pressures and temperatures seem totally normal to me: 2 Bar at warm idle is great.

Did you like the test-drive?

[alg]

Normal and healthy. Oil temp needs some prolonged and/or hard driving to rise much more

[JonnyH]

Right cheers guys

Jamo: The oil pressure gauge did move - it went down to when warm at idle. The oil temp only rose by about 5 deg,to 70, since iirc the minimum on that gauge is 65 anyway. Was expecting around 80 deg C. Neither looked to be broken - I was more concerned about what was sending the signal to the gauge

dan_b: I thought it was fantastic to drive. No other funny noises as far as my untrained ear could tell. Clean smooth idle. Having driven another one a couple of days ago, this one was a world apart and made me realise the other one was a bad 'un- I was just concerned that it was going to bite me 'cos of this oil pressure thing - I guess seeing something going off the scale is frightening as you don't know how far off the scale it has gone

The only thing I was surprised at was that I'd read the paper figures of max torque being 1950 rpm, but didn't really feel a decent kick until 3k rpm. It's a stock ABY so I was a bit miffed to tell you the truth. Maybe that's normal too. No problems once on boost though.

And there was an odd burnt oil smell in the cabin whilst driving. I took this to be because it had been standing, since I couldn't see any smoke coming out of the back - perhaps something had been sprayed on the engine to clean it. I think it might have been blowing a bit from somewhere up front, so perhaps this was coming into the cab.

[Fat Audi 80]

Just to reiterate, all those figures for oil temp and pressure sound normal. High oil pressure is a good thing, when the pressure does not rise with revs you need to start worrying.

As for the smell, I am not sure. The problem with the S2 is, the undertray CAN hide allsorts of sins as insted of seeing an oil drip on the driveway it will be contained in the undertray so that you cannot see it.

It might be worth going for a reasonable drive in it again and then asking if you can remove the undertray and inspect under the engine. The smell could be a drip of oil on to anything hot under the bonnet.

That said, if the car drove well, has a good history and the owner seems genuine these are all good signs when buying a car.

Good luck.

Cheers,

Steve.

[stevieyid]

sound exactly like mine. I had the same concerns im glad u asked this question. I have had the car about two months now and touch wood no problems (except a leaking fuel line which is common apparently) I also had a health check on the engine before my remapp and i was told it was in vbery good condition which was music to my ears

[JonnyH]

Nice one, cheers all. Makes me feel more confident that the engine is not likely to go bang.

[hiltoa]

My non S2 avant has the same burnt oil smell every so often - It is pooled oil dripping onto the hot manifold from my cam cover gasket when I brake. Must get round to fixing it - the puff of blue/white smoke curling up from the side of my bonnet at traffic lights is a tad embarrassing.

[alg]

Nice one, cheers all. Makes me feel more confident that the engine is not likely to go bang.

Jonny I am sure Doug would take a look at the car with you if you have concerns. Equally I would but IMHO Doug knows far more than me.......................'correct plastic RS2 ecu clips' indeed