On Wed, 14 Sep 2011, eric at megageek.com wrote:
> OK, car is a 2003 Toyota MR Spider. The "Check Engine" light came on,
> again, for the 2nd O2 sensor. (This will be the 4th one on the car with
> less than 110K miles on it.)
> Each time, its the same O2 sensor (the one at the end of exhaust system)
>
> First, what could cause this car to constantly kill the same O2 sensor but
> not the one 'upstream' from it?
>
> Second, could any additional damage occur from not fixing it right away?
> (We plan to write to Toyota to have them give us an answer since the first
> 3 times this car was under warrantee.)
Eric, you may want to sit down. I'm going to use the phrase "new
engine" in a minute.
The Spyder has a well-known issue with the "pre-catalytic converter".
The innards of the pre-cat break up over time, and due to some weird
exhaust gas recirculation system, get sucked back into the combustion
chamber where, as you can imagine, nothing good results.
It's common for the shards of pre-cat to kill O2 sensors, as well,
which is often how this issue gets identified.
At least two friends of mine had new engines installed by Toyota under
warranty/goodwill, but I don't know if they'll still do that.
Here's some further information...
http://www.midshiprunabout.org/mk3/precat-information/
You could probably find even more at http://www.spyderchat.com/
Sorry.
--
David Hillman
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