Question, O2 upstream sensor for Trailblazer 2003 4.2L

Greetings,

I have a 2003 LS series Trailblazer 4WD with a 4.2L engine. It has

44,000 miles on it, so far it only needed one part, still under warranty, the engine... Well, It has been a year since the engine was replaced, going to work the other day the check engine light came on. I took it to advance auto parts and they put it on the machine to get the error codes out of it. It came up with error code P0172, System Too Rich. I pulled the old one out and checked it for continituity, it is a 4 wire unit, the heater checked OK and then I put a volt meter across the sensor lines and heated it up a little with a propane torch, it never read over .065 volts. I thought it might be the O2 sensor, so, I picked one up. They gave me a Bosch 15285. I took out the old one and when I was putting in the new one I noticed that it didn't have any slits on the side like the original. I tried it in the opening and it fit, so, I put it in. Well, the next day the check engine came on. I thought the the computer module may need cleared so I disconnected the battery for half an hour or so and hooked up the battery, Check engine light came on after 20 or so miles. I know that it may be something else. I had the check engine come on one time because the gas cap was loose. My question would be is the Bosch 15285 the proper sensor for the upstream sensor? Is there any cheap error reading units out there on the market?

As always, Thanks in advance,

Markus

Reply to
Markus
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Goto your local autozone they will probally be nice enough to put it on a scanner for you.

Reply to
Adam F

Reply to
Shep

Yes, 15285 is the correct sensor in the upstream position.

Yes. Thing is, reading the trouble code is only 5% of the diagnostic process, although, if all you're interested in is swapnostics, you'll be fine.

Did you use a high impedance volt meter when you tested with the propane torch?

Reply to
aarcuda69062

Greetings,

Yes I did use a impedance volt meter, I do electronic repair and used one of my Fluke meters. I did some more reading about o2 sensors. Found a good article about o2 sensors at.

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'm stuck at home today, couldn't do any testing today. I'll keep you posted on what I find with the latest code. In therepair business they call it shotgun repair, of course, 5 bucks for afist full of capacitors is a lot cheaper than these sensors. Take care,

Markus >>

Reply to
Markus

If it is under 5 years old and under 50K miles it is still covered by the emissions warranty for this so a dealer should fix it for free.

----------------- TheSnoMan.com

Reply to
SnoMan

Snojob, that has NOT been the case for 12 model years.

The EPA mandated warranty on O2 sensors has been 2/24 since the implementation of OBD2.

Reply to
aarcuda69062

Why do you think it is an O2 sensor problem? Too rich could be any number of things. O2 codes would be in the 130-167 area. Just getting a code is really of little value. You need to hook it up to a scanner and see how everything is interacting. Pull the freeze frame data and see just what was going on when the code was set. I would think a 172 code would be more of a leaking or dirty injector.

Reply to
calhoun

Hey Ahole, you can make a coment without getting nasty. ALso I do question that comment because they have not relaxed the 5year 50K emission standard as you suggest and they are tlking about extending it in the future. In order to sell a car they have to certify it to meet emissions for this period above, not just for 24K miles.

----------------- TheSnoMan.com

Reply to
SnoMan

Calhoun,

Being stuck home all day I did some research. Looks like a canister problem would cause this sort of problem. I'm interested about the dirty injector suggestion, see, I had a Astro van years ago. It had a throttle body fuel injector. Funny thing, my Trailblazer is acting just like my Astro van. I made up a tube that was bent so that I could pull out the dog house and remove the air cleaner. I would just spray the face of the injector with carb cleaner and clean out the crap coating the inside of the carb and it would run like a top. I realize that those days are gone. I really never messed with the injectors on this beast yet. It looks like the driver for the injector is mounted right on the injector. Is there an injector for each cylinder? I can't see under the air box on top of the engine. Years before that I had a 1973 Chevy Nova that ran like a dog, had it to the shop plenty of times, I found the problem to be a cracked vacuum line. It dried out and had a crack in it. I found that by accident. It ran like a top after I fixed it, My Nova had a 350 in it, I miss it.

Thanks,

Markus

Reply to
Markus

Wait a second! You should not be passing your name around. Bad enough you hand out bad info, now your going to be nasty as well?

I'm going to have to change your sig again.

There ya go!!

Reply to
Roy

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