I should have read the Manual more carefully and thoroughly. It had been sitting in the glove box, almost never opened. I have learned a lot here from all of you. Thanks!
You are extremely welcome.
Stick around and take part in discussions you find interesting. Folks who frequent this site learn from each other.
CSA 
I agree.
My '72 Vega, for all its faults, had its fuel pump circuit set up such that if the engine lost oil pressure the fuel pump would shut down. I’ve always wondered why all cars didn’t have this feature. IMHO they should.
The Vega actually had a lot of good design features. Unfortunately, everything on the car was cheapened so much in its design that those feature couldn’t save it from its cheeziness-caused failings. That was the era when manufacturers hired “value engineers” whose job it was to pour over the design and make everything as cheaply as was humanly possible.
A loud buzzer or chime with the oil pressure light would save a few engines.
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My '75 Civic had this too.
Besides offering some protection to the engine it would keep the carb from pouring out fuel after a rollover crash.
Yeah, that was before GM executives started putting the buying public before themselves. What’s good for the public is good for GM. I think they finally got that figured out, but it took a long, long time.
Can you imagine the panicwrecks that would be caused when bad drivers who don’t maintain their car suddenly start stalling out on the freeway? Now that that picture’s in your head, start imagining the grin on plaintiff attorneys’ faces when they find out this was an intentionally-implemented feature of the car. 
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If that’s a concern then the vehicles could be disabled after they are parked (when dangerously low on oil) and not restart until serviced. I’m pretty sure you won’t like that idea either, but oh well…
CSA 
I like that idea. Or disabled when the speed drops below a threshold, perhaps 10 MPH.
That’s definitely a much better idea. I’d be fine with it.
But it won’t be implemented either because someone will point out that there’s a small but non-zero possibility that a customer will want to use the car to get away from an attacker and find it disabled, so in order to save the engine the car allowed him to get murdered and - lawsuit.
There are an amazing amount of design choices made for products we use every day from Scotch Tape to cars that are made out of fear of lawsuits. (the Scotch Tape example - they specifically made it non-toxic on the assumption that some idiot would eat it, and that way they won’t be sued if he dies).
However, the dispenser can become a “choking hazard” when somebody tries eating it, ha, ha…
CSA
Since the car is carbureted it gives you “run time” until the carb runs out of fuel so you can pull off the road. If you do that with fuel injection the engine quits instantly.
True. I cannot imagine any company assuming that level of liability just to protect someone’s engine. Also, any time a feature is added that is intended to be supervisory, the company exposes itself to liability for the proper and correct function of that feature. “My engine died from lack of oil but I never got the alert!”. It becomes more problematic than it’s worth. In this case, we’re talking about protecting people from their own stupidity, ignorance or outright laziness. My position is, if you’re dumb enough to run your engine out of oil, then you get what’s coming to you. Perhaps you’ll learn from it but if not, then you’ll spend way more than you need to for transportation during your lifetime. I’m not willing to share in the expense of protecting you from yourself…
I disagree the assumption was an idiot would eat it and they would get sued. They should be concerned that a curious child would put in the mouth, or a person using the product a lot would get poison on their fingers…
Planning to have your product be useful and safe is good business. Even if product liability lawsuits did not exist, it is the right thing to do. When consumers lose faith in a product, especially if they think it is a dangerous product, it can be the end of the company. How much attention and money did the makers of Tylenol put into rehabbing their brand, even though it was not their actions that caused the tragic deaths?
Fear of lawsuits is a motivator, but not the only reason a business tries to be ethical.
A lot of these stories are myths, and like ancient myths, they entertain more than educate.
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I got that quote straight from one of the 3M team members working on a (now defunct) Scotch Tape-based sticker roll.
Unless of course you’re talking about cars. People still flock to buy Fords and GMs despite the fact that they intentionally allowed dangerous products which killed people to be produced.
A fancy PR campaign coupled with general public apathy can go a long way toward making people forget how many customers were killed by your product. On the other hand, a billion-dollar class action lawsuit, now that can hurt.
That’s a good point. I’m not sure you’d have more than a chance to sputter to a stop on the side of the road once you realized that the oil pressure was lost, but the point is a good one anyway.
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An engine with the oil pressure light on is going to stall soon anyway.
Quite true, but that’s not the car maker’s fault. They even put an idiot light in there to warn the idiot that the engine is about to die.
However if the engine is designed to shut down under certain circumstances that do not involve “the car has already crashed,” then the liability shifts to the car maker, not the owner.
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I don’t agree that including a system to shut the engine down in the case of a loss of oil pressure would in any way create a liability for the manufacturer. As a matter of fact, it could be argued that since affordable technology exists to provide such a system, not designing it into the vehicle would make the manufacturer liable. But in all honesty, I cannot imagine any civil court magistrate anywhere finding for a plaintiff in such a case. There’s too much owner negligence involved.
Hunt up a lawyer and ask her. I bet she’ll vehemently disagree with that assessment.
BTW, the liability isn’t just regarding the actual purchaser of the vehicle. It’s more to the point regarding the third-party person who ends up in the wreck that was caused when the purchaser’s car shut down. They’re going to have the option to sue the person who neglected the maintenance, and the manufacturer of the vehicle (which of course will be more lucrative, because car makers tend to have a lot of money).