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On death's doorstep?
Scion update!
Preamble: my brother is not exactly known for careful maintenance practices. (It's possible he changes engine oil once in a year or thereabouts, but not confirmed.)
A month ago, his Scion's oil light started flickering at low engine RPM and staying on when the engine was hot at idle. It's only got something like 180k km = 112k miles on it now.
Uh oh! Aren't these Camry engines supposed to live forever?
1st attempted fix: changed the pressure sending unit. Didn't help.
2nd attempted fix: dropped the oil pan to check that the pan isn't full of guck blocking the oil pump intake. That wasn't the problem.
3rd attempted fix: added a mechanical oil pressure gauge to more closely watch what's happening. Answer: Good pressure when cold, drops to ZERO(!) on the gauge at idle when hot (eg. after 25-35 minutes of driving).
4th attempted fix: new oil pump. Nope!
5th attempted fix: changed oil from 5w20 to 10w40 non-synth oil + Lucas magic molasses in a can, 1L. Gauge shows slightly better pressure, but it's so thick this engine is now not going to start on a really cold winter morning.
6th potential fix? His mechanic says $2k for a used, low-kilometer engine.
The strange thing is despite running at ZERO indicated oil pressure more than a couple of times, the engine has never made a strange noise (no knock, no ticking). And there's always oil up top when peering into the oil fill hole.
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