Low compression and oil pressure light on 2005 Acura TL

Question

I have a 2005 Acura TL 6 manual transmission, about to hit 250k miles. Was driving it the other day, the low oil pressure light started flashing. Immediately turned the car off and pulled over, oil level was fine. Drove it home with no light, changed the oil and didn't see any sort of metal debris in the oil.

Today I figured I'd look at the plugs and do a compression test, and all cylinders except cylinder 1 hit 240 psi. Cylinder 1 was 210 psi, and the spark-plug that came out of it looked a little darker than the rest.

Car runs decent enough maybe a little low on power and sometimes has a hiccup around 2k rpms. No abnormal noises, should I be concerned about any of this or am I just being paranoid?

Answer 1

Low compression+low oil pressure+low power= worn piston rings most likely.

You should also be seeing black smoke coming from the exhaust pipe and loss of oil. You can check out my page, I posted a video of me doing a “paper test” for a bad valve seat. I have low compression on cylinder 5 but no smoke, no loss of power, no loss of oil. If you do the paper test and it’s similar to my results it could be a valve?? Low compression is difficult to diagnose without taking the heads off. Could also do a leak down test too.

Comments

I haven't noticed any smoke at all, was planning on having someone drive behind me and see if they saw anything. Paper and valve test will probably be my next move, thanks for the advice.

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You’re welcome! I forgot to ask another thing.. do you notice the engine rumbling at all? And if so is it all the time while you’re driving or just at idle?

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Haven't heard any sort of rumbling yet, engine runs pretty quiet. There's a little bit of a ticking noise but it's been there since I bought the car at 120k miles ago, hasn't gotten any louder.

Answer 2

The oil pump is probably going bad.

Answer 3

Sounds like it could be time for an overhaul, short block at least. At 250k it doesn’t owe you anything I’d say. Maybe try running a bit heavier oil and see if you can nurse it for a while.

Comments

Can't really complain if the engine did decide to go at 250k, really would like it to last until December when I graduate though. Put 5-30w in when I changed it the other day, if I were to go heavier what would you recommend?