Alfa Romeo 939 Series Oil Temperature Sensor

Italian electronics aren’t known to be the best. So when I purchased my 2.2JTS Alfa Brera in early 2019, I was expecting some issues to come to light over my period of ownership. I noticed on the drive home that the oil seemed to get up to temperature very quickly, and cool down quickly too. Normal I thought, although maybe a quick sensor change that would be at most £20 and half hours effort .

Oh how wrong I was.

On the 2.2JTS it requires dropping the oil pan/sump which sounds easy enough in practice, but then reading the manual it says removal of the power steering and aux belt. The effort that it took to get the aux tensioner off, and the stretch belt back on when I changed the alternator was not worth going through again for a small temperature gauge indicator that had no relevance to engine performance. Following the manual for the 3.2 V6 JTS requires sump removal as well, however this time with the requirement of the engine to be removed from the car – no small feat.

Current prices for the OEM sensors are roughly £200 for both the 2.2JTS and 3.2 V6 JTS. Unfortunately these are not a common part that is shared between the other Ecotech engine lineup from GM/Vauxhall, which means the expensive Alfa OEM sensor (55192304) would be the only other option on top of any labour charges.

Because I don’t want to spend an entire weekend stripping the bottom of my car down to get access to a sensor that may go bad in another few years, I’ve made a custom solution that plugs directly into the factory wiring harness for both the 2.2JTS and 3.2 V6 and doesn’t require sump removal, nor removal of the original sensor in order to function. This will work as a replacement oil temperature sensor on the entire 939 range – the 159, Brera, and Spider.

The V1 of this product will remove the oil level sensor functionality unless the retainment loom option is selected within the shop. However, as there’s a secondary way of checking the oil level I’m less concerned about this (that and the level sensor doesn’t work on my Brera either, but we’ll ignore that!).