Posted: Mar 09 2009 at 12:30am | IP Logged

On my '06 is the oil guage, pressure or temp?

On start up, when the outside temp is below freezing the needle on the oil  guage goes up as I accelerate, drops a bit when the tranny shifts. It levels off to normal at cruising speeds.

This only happens until the engine has warmed?

1.Regardless of which type of reading temp vs pressure, any idea on why the reading goes up under acceleration?

I'm running Mobil 1 5W30. I'm  living in the Yukon so have had some -40C temps but this appears to happen even at just below freezing as well.

Hugh

Posted: Mar 09 2009 at 6:00am | IP Logged

I think I am correct in saying that the oil pressure guage is a dummy gauge.  It reads a constant value when the oil pressure is in a given region.  Nissan was getting all kinds of questions from folks about why the needle moved around.  However, if the pressure is low, such as at startup in extremely cold weather, the gauge will show that as it is outside of the parameters of a normal reading.  Once the pressure gets to the normal region, the gauge "locks out" at its normal reading.

You might want to run 0W-30 in those cold winters.  Better flow at startup.  Mercedes use 0W-40 year round with obvious excellent results.