So, I am new to Audis and to the forums. I have been looking over things for the past couple of days, and am seeing a LOT of information. Here's my situation:

I bought the car in December of 2011 with 143600 miles on it. When I bought the car, I had them check out all sorts of things. At the time there was a check engine light on, but no codes. They cleared the light and sold me the car. Everything else looked great - oil and engine were clean, interior is BEAUTIFUL, brakes are solid, tires still had wear left, etc.

Then last week the car started throwing up oil pressure lights randomly. I know it has a minor oil leak, but nothing that should be causing pressure issues. The first time it happened, I checked the oil and it was a little low, so I added some. The second time, the oil level was fine. It's the same issue others have been having - it'll be fine 100% at idle, throw a light when it hits 2500 RPM, then go off if I drive it for a little while and as long as the car stays warm, the light won't come back on. I may have added a little too much oil at one point, because one morning when it was fairly cold out I started the car to warm it up and came back out to a puddle of oil under the car right under the side of the oil pan. It hasn't happened again and the oil level is fine.

So far I have seen that a lot of A4s have sludge problems, though in looking at the oil cap/dipstick I don't think that's my problem, because both are very clean. I am also seeing that the pressure sensor or pump could go bad. I have an appointment with a mechanic that I'm fairly confident in (they did work on my 1998 VW Passat previously, before I wrecked it ) on Tuesday, but in the meantime I am a delivery driver for a living and I need this car to be okay until then. How bad is it for me to continue driving the car with this issue? The engine doesn't smell, it isn't making any noises, and sounds just as smooth as can be when running. Then again, I know that things can go FUBAR in an instant. Help me out here, guys, I am a relative n00b at maintaining older vehicles.

 

VW/Audi vehicles check for oil pressure to be good at idle & at 2000 rpm. It is possible that the oil pressure at higher rpm is out of spec. The only way to be sure is to remove the oil sender , hook up an oil psi gauge & see what it reads at each rpm.
It is possible the oil screen could be plugged up if it is happening at a higher rpm but it would be just a guess???