Oxygen sensor change

[Stevey Y]

Greetings everybody. I had a code come up for the oxygen sensor a couple of months ago but no MIL so I deleted the fault as it had only occurred the once, I had bought a sensor that was on offer on eBay, it was genuine Bosch I checked the hologram on the box when it arrived and it was all good and the code had not reared its ugly head again so between that and the not so happy memories of changing them on my Fords, awkward places they put them and the undeniable fact that even with anti seize paste I have had to heat them with a blow torch and cut the wiring and attack them with a wall drive socket I had been avoiding this job until the weather got a bit warmer and you could sit on the wall with a drink while the plus gas did its thing.

Well today it went critical whilst out at work today [cabbie], full blown limp mode Mil on and supping diesel like there was no tomorrow so retired gracefully and fired up the VCDS, the sensor had definitely spat its dummy out and was running lean that would explain the rapid downward movement of the fuel gauge as if this problem occurs the PCM adopts its own fuel enrichment strategy to protect the valves from burning, problem with this is if you drive round for long enough like this the extra fuel will kill the CAT which when you consider the sensor is only ten percent of the price of a new CAT its a no brainer.

So after letting the car cool to warm I went at it, because the sensor is at the top it won't suffer the same causes of rotting in that the Ford sensors do, I had watched a youtube video on the subject but the guy doing it was using a couple of spanners not my cup of tea, to much margin for error especially when the sensor is stuck between two other sensors which if the spanner slips there is a good chance of causing serious damage, I used a proper Lambda socket with a long 1/2 inch drive extension and matching ratchet boy is it tight in the housing, brain in gear I got a metre piece of steel tubing and put that over the ratchet handle a little easy pressure and click it undid, then once undone I removed the electrical connector and chased the wiring out of its clips when removed the reason for the non seizing became apparent some really clever engineer had put a high grade steel insert in the mounting boss so it cant corrode, happy days, between the removal of the sensor and reinstalling the new sensor as well as the code delete and readapting of the new sensor, forty five minutes.

Steve.