Low Oil Pressure Alarm! - Now odometer display not working

[wrenchhead34]

We have a 2005 Saturn Relay 2. Has about 197k miles. The wife called today to say an alarm was going off and the display was reading "Low Oil Presssure". I had her park it and after work I checked it. I saw no signs that the oil pump was out so I decided to put in a new pressure relay. That turned off the alarm BUT now the LCD odometer/message display is not working. I take that back, it does light up and show "Key in Ignition" - sometime says it in spanish - but after that it goes balck and shows nothing.

Any one have any ideas whats going on? What can i check? Should I have error codes read?

[2NDSOUT]

How old is the battery in the Van?

We have a 2007 Chevy Uplander that is similar to the Relay, but our Uplander is a bare bones model without any bells and whistles on it...

I would check the battery in the Van- if the battery is older (5+ Years old)- it could be starting to show signs of starting to go dead by displaying odd electrical messages in the dash. You may be running on borrowed time with the battery. Seen similar happenings in my S-Series cars too...

[wrenchhead34]

The battery is dated 8/12, so not to old. The wife said the display came on back to normal today. Hmm? Now I'm wondering if the oil pressure switch was really bad or we had some funky electrical issue going on! I am going to test the switch at work tomorrow. I'll supply some pressure and see what the resistance is. Thought i read that it should be between 15 and 80(??) ohms?

[2NDSOUT]

I would guess that would be right. I haven't had any issues with our Uplander. Maybe a good test for you would be to put your multimeter on the battery with the Van off (it should read 12 Volts), and then with the Van running it should read 13-15 Volts.

If the Volts reading is less then 12 Volts with the Van sitting, that would point to a bad battery.

If the Volts reading is less then 13-15 Volts with the Van running, that would point to a bad alternator.

Hope this helps you out.

[crkeehn]

Originally Posted by 2NDSOUT

How old is the battery in the Van?

We have a 2007 Chevy Uplander that is similar to the Relay, but our Uplander is a bare bones model without any bells and whistles on it...

I would check the battery in the Van- if the battery is older (5+ Years old)- it could be starting to show signs of starting to go dead by displaying odd electrical messages in the dash. You may be running on borrowed time with the battery. Seen similar happenings in my S-Series cars too...

I would second the suggestion to look at the battery. When I had issues with my battery, I began to get all sorts of strange indicators. Once the battery was tested and replaced, the van began to act normally again.

[billysvue]

3 yrs and 4 months was all I was able to get out of a COstco battery, recently, before a dead cell reared it's ugly head as a weak/ no start condition, the morning following a 30 mile drive the night before.

BUmp start got'er going following day, but charging was no help as the storage wasn't there, anymore( it would quickly drop off in a couple hours below 11 volts).

Chalk it up to potholes and rough RR crossings( batts don't like vibration). I briefly entertained a parasitic loss causing the issue( I disconnected a small inverter I had plugged into the cig lighter) and poked around under the hood, but that effort lasted until the next day when I had the same nostart issue as the previous morn.

Batt swap,problem gone.