Oil Pressure

[alfanfl]

What would cause the oil pressure to drop off after the engine is warmed up. With the engine cold the OP is way above the 55 psi mark. After driving the car 30 to 45 minutes, the OP drops off below the mark that is between 0 and 55 psi. That's even at 2500 to 3000 rpm. At idle it's an estimated 10 to 15 psi.
Could oil be leaking past the seat in the pressure relief valve in the oil pump?
PS This is a new car to me and I'm still trying to figure it out.

[Hit an Apex]

my car does the same thing, oil psi drops at idle and low rpms when car warms up. This is a comm on Alfa thing, our GTV6 has done this since new - and supposedly back in the 80s everyone complained about it, but nothing was ever done - it was accepted

[nizam]

To be sure, one should use a calibrated oil pressure sensor/gauge (not the one in the car). This is similar to the many threads on "why is my car running hot".

I can confirm that on my 3.0V6, the gauge behavior is the same as mentioned above. When cold, the needle is a little over 55psi and when warm, the needle hardly reaches the 1/4 mark at cruising speed (around 3,000 rpm).

The funny thing is, the gauge worked "correctly" when I last changed the OP sensor, that is to say, OP was at 55psi when cold, but would also max out at around 55psi at redline, when warm. I've learned to not trust Alfa gauges absolutely, and verify their readings with calibrated, aftermarket sensors/gauges and then using the correlation in day-to-day driving. Otherwise, I'd go nuts worrying about things that aren't potentially broken!

[CrowBar]

OIL PRESSURE RELIEF VALVE....trust me on this. My Spider did this for years.. It gets stuck upon. It is located on the oil pump. Take it out and clean it.\

-CB