Hello, old timer here but first time with a Saturn (have owned Olds and Pontiac when I was a younger man). Just bought a 2009 Saturn Aura XR for my youngest daughter. 3.6L VVT V6 with just over 100k miles. Dark blue, gray leather interior, decently appointed. Just bought it Monday. Private sale. Have the CarFax, General maintenance (done at dealerships through 2017 with regular oil changes) but nothing for timing chain replacement. She test drove it, ran fine, no issues. She came to get it (I left it at my work cuz no tags), swapped it out for the tags on her old car, then she drove us around for a few minutes to fill it up and get some lunch. No issues. She said on her drive back to her place (about 10 miles away) the oil light would intermittently come on. Last night she went to work and the oil light didn't go off. I checked the oil and the cap before purchase (oil level on the dipstick looked fine and the cap didn't smell burnt but the dipstick was in very tightly).

I don't hear any rattling or any overheating to make me think its the timing chain, but I don't know. I told her to put a quart of oil in it before she drives it again, then tomorrow take it to a Jiffy Lube or wherever to get an oil and filter change. Her regular mechanic can't get to it for 2 weeks.

any other experiences or suggestions til I have a professional check it over? Thanks.

 

Idiot oil light will go on if the oil pressure is too low, meaning the oil is not being distributed throughout the engine at a high enough pressure to properly lubricate everything.

How long was the test drive?

It also may be that the oil pressure sending unit has gone bad.
The only way to check this is with a pressure gauge and or a known good sender for the aura. I suppose it could be a wiring problem too.

I ask how long the test drive was because it may have been a pre-existing condition that did not show up in the test drive. I always do both city and highway driving on a test drive to uncover any issues. No it's not possible to catch everything, but if you point blank asked the previous owner if they had told you about all known issues, and they lied by omitting this particular issue, then that's a whole nother animal.

Anything that pops up within 5 mi of driving it away is horribly suspicious to me. Then again it may just be a coincidence. To be safe, I would park it for 2 weeks and give it to your mechanic and not take it to jiffy lube because you want to get a sample of what comes out of the engine oil pan plug hole. If they played games with the oil to keep the light from coming on, that should be evident in the consistency of the oil that comes out.

Generally, in life, I trust pretty much no one or anything at face value. This has its virtues but also it's pitfalls. I can't lay here on my couch and say who did or didn't do what. I can only lay out hypotheses about why the light is coming on and why it may have come on so soon after you drove the car away. But if they did play any games with the oil, it will be impossible to prove if you completely drain that oil from the car

How you pursue the issue is up to you. If you decide to get the oil changed, most definitely make them give you a sample of what comes out during the oil change and probably get the filter in a bag to see if there is evidence of clogging.

 

Thanks, Derf. Great advice here. Unfortunately she needs to drive the car for work so can't let it sit for 2 weeks til the master mechanic gets a look at it. Will definitely tell her to get the oil filter and a sample of the oil.

The test drive was about 3 miles by my seat of the pants; same with when we took it for gas and then lunch (about 3 miles). I did not see any oil stains under where I parked it overnight at my work. My guess is its not leaking oil, rather burning or blowing by the pistons but thats for the master mechanic to diagnose. My plan is to visit the (local) garage where they said they had it serviced (and produced a few repair invoices). I'll ask the garage folks if they can reprint the service history done by them. This couple (sellers) only had the car for about 7500 miles (since like 92k miles and change). If one of the service statements has an oil change, leads me to think the engine may have been starved before they owned it.

I will post more when I know more. Thanks again.