Oil (Idiot) Gauge

Did you know that Ford has been duping us for a long time. The oil pressure gauge in most Ford Truck and Cars manufactured since about 1986 has had a "Fake" oil pressure gauge. The gauge is drive by a switch which switches on at about 4.5lbs which ties to a resistor that causes the gauge to deflect to about 2/3 scale.. I was totally unaware about this when I bought my new truck F250 Powerstroke. I sent ford a complaint and they said basically "It's designed that way and we aint gonna fix it".... Below is a link to a site that details this scam... http://www.asashop.org/autoinc/march98/techtips.htm PS: I duplicate posted this to the other forums so they would know about it to....

[Gearhead]

Actually, this has been going on since way before 86, and it isn't just Ford that has been doing it. Most manufacturers have used some sort of "trigger" that keeps the oil pressure gauge sitting right near the middle of the range as long as the actual oil pressure is within normal levels. Many have been doing this since the 70's. The main reason for this is that with the oil pressure rising and dropping with engine RPM it caused the gauge to fluctuate accordingly, and this caused the less knowledgable (probably about 95% of vehicle owners) to assume that something was wrong and take the vehicle to the dealer to be "fixed". It was less hassle for the manufaturers to effectively turn the oil pressure gauge into a dummy gauge rather than keep repeatedly explaining the function to customers. Lately more of the car companies have been putting "real" gauges back in their more performance oriented and heavy duty vehicles to give the drivers better information about what is actually going on in their engines (thankfully). I bet that the typical sedan is still working on the "idiot" principle just to avoid hassles with customers though.

[fascaps]

Thats why I added oil, Pyro and boost guages so I KNOW whats going on with my truck. This is a real plus if your planning to chip your motor or tow alot. Which I have chipped my motor and tow a enclosed trailer.

[skhawks]

the strategy you call a scam is to keep guys like you from going to the dealer once a week asking why your oil pressure fluxuates so much. your powerstroke will shut down within 10 seconds if
the crankcase oil pressure does not supply the
high pressure oil pump with oil to pop off the
injectors, so no need to worry, or complain for that matter. you have an excellent engine with fail safe strategies so cork it.

[4245]

HA HA, yA MY IDIOT LIGHT WAS FLICKERING LAST WEEK THE PROBLEM WAS THE OIL SENDING UNIT, COST $100.00 NOT BAD I GUESS, A DEALER FIXED IT, I HAVE BEEN DRIVING THE 7.3 SINCE 96, GREAT ENGINE NEVER REALLY NEVER HAD PROBLEMS MAJOR PROBLEMS WITH THEM, I PUT SOME MAJOR TOWING MILES,PULLS PRETTY GOOD STARTS TO WINE THOUGH AT ABOUT TOWING 14,000 LBS, THINKING OF GOING TO A BIGGER TRUCK MAYBE INTERNATIONAL OR A FRIEGHT LINER

[bigokie]

There is a tech bullitin over at ford diesel.com on how to make your gauge work like it is supposed to. It is cheap and rather easy. Good luck.

[deleontow]