Oxygen sensor problem on 2001 Altima

MiamiCuse 17 years ago

Had the engine light come on and took it to the dealer, dealer says catalytic converter problem will cost $900, asked him to check to see if the cat converter has damaged the engine he said no but if you don't do it soon it will. Replaced the cat converter and now a week later the light came on again.

Took it back and they said it's the oxygen senor now, will be $500.

So I said was it the cat converter bad last time or was it a total waste of money, he said the cat converter was definitely bad the computer says so.

I said what if the computer is wrong and that is the malfunction or the sensor for it would I not have to end up replacing all the parts?

He said it's up to you the cat converter was bad and now oxygen sensor is bad, just that it's a coincidence it happened two weeks in a row. He said I could take it elsewhere and they would hook up the computer read the code and recommend the same thing.

Should I do it or take it to another shop?

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e.meyer 17 years ago

Too late now. For future reference, the code for bad cat means the engine computer didn't like the readings it was getting from the after- cat O2 sensor. This means either the sensor is bad or the cat is bad, or the wiring is bad. If you take it anywhere else, they will see the same trouble codes, but they might be more consciencious about actually troubleshooting the problem.

It sounds like, in your case, it was just a bad O2 sensor and they probably didn't need to replace the cat. Good luck getting them to own up to that. Far too many of these guys just replace whatever part is addressed by the trouble code without actually diagnosing the problem.

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al 17 years ago

You learned an expensive lesson. Codes don't tell you what part is at fault. They tell you what parameter is out of specification. It is then necessary to understand what the out of spec parameter means and diagnose the problem to figure out what's wrong. The problem was the front oxygen sensor - $50-100 part. You need to find somebody that understands cars and not idiots that only know how to read codes and start throwing parts at the car. Good luck. Al

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