wideband O2 going bad? How do you know?

[Qualitywires.com]

What are the tell tail signs of a wideband o2 going bad?

My wideband O2 is showing 14.7:1-15.2:1 A/F which is correct at cruising or idle. When the car is warmed up, it shoots to 18.1:1, 19.5:1

When the car cools down, the O2 seems to work fine for about 3-5 minutes then it goes back to the higher A/F numbers...I know my car is not leaning out...so it has to be the wideband...I think the Octane booster I used in my fuel might have killed my wideband O2 sensor...what do you think?

Luckily I have another one since they are fairly cheap to replace.

What are the no! no's! of not to do to wideband O2's?

I know know to use leaded gas...obviously..

Thanks!

 

[Travis]

I assume you have a Bosch 6066 or 7057 sensor. Octane booster will kill one of them as fast as leaded fuel. Pull your plugs, they are prolly orange also. A NTK sensor holds up much better to leaded fuel.

 

[Qualitywires.com]

Not sure which one I have...it's the one the VW uses. I have a techedge wideband.

Good to know Octance booster will kill it. I guess I need to run my tank all the way down before I put the new sensor in.

 

[Travis]

Its the 7057 sensor then. Id just convert to a NTK and use real fuel..

 

[Joel]

I think I read on the leaflet that comes with the Bosch wideband sensors ( or maybe with the AEM ) that the sensors have a life of around 30k miles with unleaded and 10k miles with leaded. I was surprised to read that about the leaded. Cant find the leaflet now, am I remembering incorrectly ?

 

[BlueGTS]

I could tell mine was going bad by how long it took to heat up. The more deposits on it from leaded gas / octane booster the longer it takes to give acturate readings after startup. I changed it out when I felt I was waiting too long for it to warm up.

 

[dblankenbaker]

I have TechEdge w/7057 (VW) sensor. I had a similar problem which turned out to be a short in the TechEdge cable on the end where the O2 sensor plugs in. The individual wires were heat cracked from heat off the heaters. They were shorting out intermittently causing high (lean) readings occasionally. Double-check that end of the cable and make sure you insulate it well. I bought a spare O2 sensor and cable, but didn't see the cause of the problem until I had the cable off the car.

 

[pullshard]

Just a word to the wise, do not forget to re calibrate these before you log data. You would be surprised how much the readings can "drift" when these devices sit for a while. I'm no expert on this subject, but when I put one on my other car and logged data a few times, I thought I was ok a\f wise. Took it down to a friend who's a mechanic, we ran car with wideband installed and the readings were off compared to my last reading which was a week before. He asked me if I had re calibrated it? Nope! So he did, ran car again and sure enough the readings changed..

 

[Qualitywires.com]

is there a way to clean off these wideband 02's? Or are they shot once they are contaminated?

What do you mean recalibrate my wideband o2? I just plug in a new one on my techedge and I should be good to go right?

 

[Joseph Dell]

What you are describing is normal operation on a blower car. At part throttle _after_ warm-up, the tech-edge will probably show 21 or so. When you get on the throttle (WOT), it will be accurate.

www.wbo2.com has info in the SOFTWARE section about recalibration. call me if you need assistance (then again, I owe you a call-back anyway from the other day).

JD

 

[Travis]

Best thing to do is ditch the junk widebands and get a FJO!

www.fjoracing.com

 

[Qualitywires.com]

Best thing to do is ditch the junk widebands and get a FJO!

www.fjoracing.com

If you say tech edge is junk...you need to go school yourself dude..

 

[1TONY1]

Best thing to do is ditch the junk widebands and get a FJO!

www.fjoracing.com

One mans junk is another mans treasure ! My TechEdge products have been great for over two years.

What did you not like about the TechEdge w/b that you had ???