Hi, I am looking at purchasing a 88' GTA but have one concern with the car. The car has a digital dash and the oil pressure guage is not reading. The display does work when you first power on the car but it does not show any reading after the initial power up. The owner says that the gauge works fine above 50 degree weather (right now we have 20 - 30 degree weather). Is this common with digital dash cars? Is it an easy fix? The owner aslo told me he does not believe the sender unit in the block is the problem. Please advise.

 

Two of my Third Gens have the digital dash. I've not had the (exact) issue you describe. When you first turn the ignition key on, you should see all the "segments" light up in the oil pressure display for a couple of seconds. Do you? In addition, if you leave the key ON and engine OFF, the red segment in the oil pressure display should be on (0 PSI). Is it?

If you weren't aware, with the oil pressure display on the digital dash, if the pressure is higher than the display can gauge, the display will show nothing. Basically, it's "off the scale".

Both of my Third Gens, when first started, will often show no display on the oil pressure display for the first minute or so because of the fast idle and thicker oil due to temperature. Once the engine warms up, the idle comes down and oil becomes less thick as it warms up - which means less oil pressure and the oil display starts to show the pressure on the display.

I would be more inclined to suspect the oil pressure sending unit since they can fail (so can the digital dash!) and they are much cheaper than the digital dash. However, it's not wise to throw money at the problem without troubleshooting.

I'll try and find my '88 shop manual to help troubleshoot the issue, should you want more information.