Oil Pressure Low! Uh-oh!

[tomenki]

My 2000 Camry CE's oil pressure light just recently came on(Friday). I had my local mechanic take a look at it and he hooked up a manual gauge to find out that my pressure is truly low, so it's not the sending unit.

Could this be a bad oil pump???

help...

[Hajoca]

possible, but also, depending on your routine maintenance, do you change your oil and filter regularly? There may be flow restriction to the oil sender port.

I cannot recall if the oil pump has a pressure regulating valve or not at this moment.

[toyomoho]

V6 or 4 cylinder? Might be sludge on the intake screen of the oil pump, plugged oil galleries, etc. There is an oil bypass valve inside the oil pump housing located in front of the engine.

You can pull of one valve cover to check for sludge build up.

Don’t run the engine with low oil pressure or the engine bearings will be damaged.

[tomenki]

Thanks for the heads-up. I'm taking it to the dealer tomorrow. Probably going to get the engine flushed.