Suzuki Vitara – how to switch off the oil light
Here’s how to switch off the yellow oil light on a Suzuki Vitara.
The light can be switched off using a plastic stalk that sticks out from the dashboard. (My Vitara has two of these protruding stalks: the one on the left resets the trip counter, and the one on the right is used to adjust other things, including the oil light.)
Turn the ignition switch without starting the engine.
The change engine oil warning will appear on the central panel, and then go away again, leaving just the word “oil” and a spanner at the top of the display.
Press and hold the plastic stalk until a list of options appears on the panel. This picture shows the “plastic stalk” in case you haven’t a clue what I’m on about:
To scroll down the list, tweak the stalk clockwise and then release it. You have to do this multiple times to skip down the list to the “Oil Change” setting:
When the “Oil Change” setting is selected, a short sharp push on the stalky-thing will switch off the warning light and reset the reminder, with confirmation that the reset was successful.
Here’s the backstory to explain why I shared this procedure. Feel free to ignore it!
You know the feeling when you buy a used car, and it takes a bit of time and mileage before you trust that you did the right thing buying it?
I’d had my Suzuki Vitara about six weeks when a yellow, “oil” light came on the dashboard with a spanner next to it, and stayed on.
With that sinking feeling, I wondered if that’s why the previous owner had got rid of the car … because the oil light kept coming on. Fortunately, I was only on my way to Aldi. If it had happened a couple of days later, as I set off up the motorway for Mum’s funeral, I would have had a meltdown!
I knew the car had been serviced before I collected it from the garage, and the dipstick was showing fresh oil, at the correct level.
The handbook that came with the car isn’t much use, as it covers every existing variation of Vitara and frequently uses the caveat, “if equipped”. Also, the terminology doesn’t always translate well. I haven’t dared try the Cruise Control feature, owing to the following warning:
Back to the oil light. Another reason it might come on is if the oil pressure is wrong, which could be an indication of impending catastrophic engine failure. Great!
Fortunately, there were no strange bubbling noises coming from the engine, so I decided perhaps it was just a sensor at fault, and started googling to find out where the sensor could be located. Aren’t sensors a nuisance?! What’s the point of them if every time a warning light comes on, it’s nothing more than a sensor at fault.
After much investigation, I found that the “problem” might not be the oil, nor the oil pressure, nor even the sensor. It could be just a case of too much information!
Apparently, each time the oil is changed, the “Oil Change” reminder should be reset. The garage I bought the car from had serviced it in May this year, but when I looked at the service history, it had previously been serviced in July 2025. The “Oil Change” reminder must have been reset in 2025, but not in 2026 when the service had been done a few weeks early. So, that scary light on the dashboard was merely to let me know it was a year since the reminder had been reset. Cheers!
I hope this post might be useful to someone. Occasionally, I try to share something useful on a whim 😉
Word on a Whim 