Date:         Sun, 7 Nov 2010 17:00:21 +0000
Reply-To:     Joy Hecht <jhecht@ALUM.MIT.EDU>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Joy Hecht <jhecht@ALUM.MIT.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Hello - Idiot oil light keeps coming on!
In-Reply-To:  <vanagon%2010110623414404@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Mine has mysteriously gone on and off for years.  Assuming we're talking
about the same light - the one that's at around "eight o'clock" on the dial
with the tach.  The one that should come on for a second or two when you
turn the engine on, just to check that it's working, and then go off.

I've heard every explanation under the sun for why it comes on and off,
ranging from dirty contacts somewhere to having the wrong kind of oil
filter.  Nothing has ever stopped it.  But it's intermittent - it won't go
on for a month or two, then it takes to going on and off.  I could be
driving for four hours - it will go on at the start of hour two, go off at
hour three, come on again at hour four.  Definitely not related to oil
levels, coolant levels, weather, speed, distance recently driven, or
anything else at all obvious.

Drives me NUTS.  You'd think by now, after seven years with Matilda, I'd
learn to just ignore it.  But no, every time it erratically comes on I get
stressed and worry madly that my engine is about to seize up on me or fall
out (okay, not really) or some other dreadful thing is about to happen.

FWIW, the time I blew a coolant hose at 70 mph in Indiana and then blew the
engine, that light also came on and the temp needle skyrocked, the warning
buzzer came on, vast clouds of steam emerged from the back of the van,
instant panic set in because I thought I had an engine fire, then in due
course (after many tows and two weeks in Rockford, Michigan) my engine was
replaced new-to-me one from Bob Donalds, wiht much help from Brien Dews,
Billy Hurt, and various other southern Michigan vanagonauts.

The light also came on the time I developed a coolant leak on the entrance
ramp between the Garden State Parkway and Rte 78 in New Jersey, followed by
the buzzer going on, the temp needle skyrocketing, me instantly turning off
the engine and pulling over (probably in that order), then sitting for HOURS
in the dark on the shoulder while the Powers that Be tried to decide under
whose jurisdiction the entrance ramp was, and therefore who should send me a
towtruck.  (Thank goodness no steam or blown engine that time - once was
QUITE enough!)

But usually when that light goes on nothing else happens except that I get
really stressed out.  And then after a while it goes off again.

If anyone knows how to FIX IT FOREVER, please let me know!!!!!




Joy



On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 3:33 AM, Ken Olsen <648.ken@gmail.com> wrote:

> >
> >Started up and the idiot light was flickering off just about 3/k revs.
> >
>
>
> Had this happen recently as well on my 1.9 WBX. Turned out the sensor wire
> was vibrating against the exhaust and had melted and was shorting out. It
> would mysteriously come and go.
>