sedate

Mom's car. CEL on for a month now. Took it in to an indy mech and diagnosed as MAF sensor. Replaced and reset, but 1 mile down the road the CEL came on again. Checked other stuff but nothing. Reset and came on again. Car ran fine otherwise. So he replaced the old sensor and refunded our money. Last week the car would hesitate at initial acceleration but then do just fine. Yesterday it was really sluggish, wouldn't go past 25-30 MPH. No power, even when downshifting. Sounds like rattling or major vibration in the engine area when it downshifted. Called dealer and he said it couldn't be due to the oil sludge (recall campaign) due to the mileage (110k+) and it might be emissions related. Can anyone shed some light? Thanks.

Lexmex

If you go to an autozone, they will read the OBDII code for free and then we can go over it. This could be an O2 sensor, but without actually having the code or even driving your vehicle, tough for me to pinpoint.

sedate

I'll go there in the next hour, thanks. The mech read the code and said it was the MAF sensor. That's why he was so puzzled.

sedate

Looks to be 5 codes:
P0125 - closed loop fuel control. insufficient coolant
P1130 - manufacturers control. fuel air metering
P1135 - same as above
P1150 - same as above
P1155 - same as above

Checked the coolant reservoir and it was fine yesterday. Any ideas? Thanks for your help.

sedate

Two things:

This AM I removed and replaced the EFI fuse and the CEL went off, for about 2 miles, then came back on. However, the car ran fine afterward, no hesitating, no sluggishness. Go figure.

About 2 weeks ago I noticed a foul smell coming out of the exhaust, like sulfur. Could it be a bad cat or O2 sensor?

Lexmex

A bad smell like that is usually a fouled up cat. Suprisingly, I found with some testing at the exhaust shop recently, no CEL with O2 sensor after cat disconnected.

We will go over your codes next.

Lexmex

Likely culprit here is one of the two A/F sensors that sits before the precats on the exhaust. Unfortunately, I can't be specific which one. You have codes that show it could be either of the two banks.

The other culprit is in addition the the A/F sensor, one or both of the precats have some clogging, hence your sluggish feeling. I have driven vehicles that have had clogged cats or precats (my own RX300 had to have its precats removed due to bad gas down here. ).

Now back to that smell you are getting again, if there is a failed A/F sensor here, it could have dumped in some unburnt fuel that could have made its way to the main cat. However, you aren't showing the code that would indicate a problem with catalytic converter efficiency.

It's too bad your outside the federal emissions warranty that goes up to I believe 8 years or 80K miles, but I am putting my finger on the that A/F sensor and clogged precat.

sedate

...and $775 later, they replaced both A/F sensors. Everything seems to be fine after 1/2 day of driving. I would have liked to have tried to take care of it, but my mom gets very nervous about driving a car with a CEL on. I guess it just seems to me way too much $$ to r/r 2 sensors. Thanks again, mex.