[5tumpy]

Hey all,

My 2009 Mondeo TDCi has a loose wire on the oil pressure sensor/switch causing the oil pressure light to come on randomly... This weekend I need to be in Canberra tomorrow (180km round trip) and then I'm working Sunday and Monday nights (400-450km round trip)... My car is the only vehicle I have available to me in that time and I can't cancel the stuff I have on without losing a significant amount of money on Sunday (work only pays penalties if I work the shift, not on leave) and breaking my 3 year old daughter's heart tomorrow by not taking her to best friend's birthday party in Canberra... Can I risk it, given that the oil was changed again today and everything is perfect with the engine?



Here's the background story:

So on Wednesday I got my car serviced by a local mechanic. Get the car back, drive it to my house about 15 mins away, no worries at all...

An hour or so later, I have to leave for work, in Sydney, about 180km drive from where I live (Goulburn)... Anyway, about 40km into my trip I get off the freeway to get dinner... As soon as I brake, oil pressure light comes on... Pull over, go inside, get dinner, leave the car for 15 mins or so, go back, check the oil, all good, no worries... Get back in to car, turn it on, oil light goes off as normal... Get all the way to Sydney, brake again to get off the M7 at work, and guess what? Light comes on again... Work is 5 mins away, so I keep driving, leave it for a few hours, check it again, oil is fine, jack it up, check underneath, no leaks I can see, every looks ok...

Work in Sydney Wednesday, drive back 20 mins to my parents place, crash there for the day, back to work Thursday night, same thing, every time I brake, light comes on, after a minute or 2, it's off again...

Drive back to Goulburn this morning, same thing again... Call the mechanic, go in and drop the car off, sit there for 2 hours while his mechanics troubleshoot, he comes back "No luck mate, we don't know what's wrong with it, we need to hook the computer up to it, but our plug is different to the one in your car. Can you go up to Ford and get it checked, and then come back and we'll sort you out?" So I do...

Ford tells me they're too busy, come back at 2pm and they'll be able to sort me out... So I go back to the mechanic, tell him, as it's 11am, don't really want to hang around for 3 hours, ask him what he thinks is the problem, could it be a sensor etc... He says to me "Let Ford check it before we spend anymore money mate!"... Fair enough...

Anyway, so I go to Ford, the 20 year old kid there doesn't even plug it into the tool, chucks it on a hoist, and has a poke around... 10 minutes later comes in, talks to the service girl and I hear them asking the parts bloke about a sensor... Long story short, one of the wires on the sensor has been damaged, can probably be soldered back together, but they don't have time. Suggests I go back to the mechanic... Go back there, and long story short old mate has ****ed off to the Snow at 2pm, and left me high and dry for the weekend... He told me to come back after 2pm when I saw Ford, and still didn't mention he was going early... Sigh... Why are good mechanics so hard to find?!

I'll add to that I've never had a problem with the car before they did the service... The car has never even so much as blown smoke other than normal condensation out the exhaust... So I'm 95% sure they are to blame for the damaged wiring in the first place...

Thanks guys!