O2 Sensor Problem

I have a 2004 Grand Prix Supercharge 6 cyl. and it has been running great for a while. My check engine light has been on for a while because of my procrastination and have finally come around to getting things changed out. I took the car to Autozone and had them check the computer. They indicated that the O2 Sensor was bad. And they gave me Bank 1 Sensor 1 error. It was time to change it out.

Find and Replace

A friend of mine offered to replace the sensor at Bank 1 Sensor 1 and I took his offer. So he replaced it, we disconnected the battery and the check engine light went off for about a day; then it came back on. After another couple of months of procrastination, I went to Autozone and had them check the computer codes. The code results where these (to see the descriptions click here):

  • P0036, and
  • P0141

This time, it was Bank 1 Sensor 2 O2 Sensor. Unfortunately though, Autozone didn’t have it in stock. In fact, their vendors didn’t even have it in stock. So, being the computer guru I am, I’ve headed to the internet to find the part. A couple of places that I’ve been successful at are these:

  1. www.rockauto.com
  2. www.autobarn.net

These are two great places that I found what I was looking for. I’ll return to these sites soon enough. Of course don’t forget to visit this site to get some discounts.

So, what happened!?

I read in a forum where a guy found that his harness was dangling from the lower part of his car and instead of trying to reattach it he bought a new O2 Sensor and harness and installed it. Thinking to myself, I’m going to see what mine looks like. Low and behold, I see a slight crimp in my harness wire where months previously, while traveling to Sun Valley, Idaho, from Salt Lake City, I had hit something in the road. I had no idea what it was and never found it. But it sounded big. I stopped on the side of the road and the “thing” had pulled a portion of my bumper off the back of the car. Ouch. I reattached it because it was the little “clip plugs” and all was well.

But now I know why my light came on a few days later. The “thing” had hit the O2 Sensor harness and having revealed the wires under the sheath, I found that some of the wires were oxidized. Time to replace the Bank 1 Sensor 2 O2 Sensor.

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