Hello Acuraziners,
I went in to the stealership for an oil change yesterday. It turned out that since i had my state inspection also due, that was also done by them,and it passed.

But when i went to pick up the car, the engine light was on. When the SSC ( Senior service consultant) noticed this, he mentioned that this also came up when they were doing the state inspection procedure. (lol...SSC..) But they reset it as the emission was passing.

Now, i have not had this O2 sensor thing before, so i am just curious if this is just a coincidence, that at 70K miles this came up. But for the time being he again reset the code, and it came back up in 2 hours. The light is still on, and i am due on Friday to drop in my car and get it fixed.

Unfortunately i do not have any tools and workmanship skills to resolve this. The car is under extended warranty but i will pay the $100 deductible to get this fixed.

My question is, is there anything that is missing here that the O2 sensor error is coming up but still the emission passed. Or another problem elsewhere creeping up that is making the O2 sensor error code.

Any thoughts on why this could have happened,
Thanks for reading,
Peekay.

 

Don't know what Texas does to check emissions. Here in NJ they changed the actual emissions testing from checking the exhaust with a wand into the tailpipe, to just checking the OBDII for any codes. No codes and it passes.

Would need the code to know what the computer has recognized as a fault. If an upstream sensor, chances are the emissions are fine and possibly just a bad sensor. If a downstream sensor, they will usually indicate that the converter is not doing it's job, or occasionally could be a bad sensor.

I'd drive it for a while to see if the code disappears after numerous starts.

 

Thanks for your response Turbonut. For now, I will continue to drive it, and see if it disappears.

 

Visit autozone or advanced auto parts ( not sure if they have that in TX) they normally pull the codes for free

 

If it is an O2 sensor, they are as easy to replace as a spark plug (as long as you have an O2 sensor socket)- they do go bad after a while (mine went out in the 80K mile range- one of them but I swapped out both). I'm also in NJ and it's true...all they do now is check for any CEL codes and run the car over a camera to make sure it has a main cat.

When you reset the CEL codes, it takes some mileage (no set amount) to make sure the ccomputer is ready, otherwise at inspection, you'll get an error that the sensors (not O2 sensors) aren't ready and they can't pass the car. In other words it has to be all systems (emissions) go for the car to pass in NJ.

I agree to wait and see if the CEL comes on again, then read it properly (vs. just clearing the code again) so you can diagnose what's wrong and fix it.