Oxygen Sensors

The lowly oxygen sensor, also referred to as the O2 sensor. So important, yet often ignored. The oxygen sensor does just what it says, it senses the amount of oxygen that is in your air-fuel mixture. The sensors are usually located in the exhaust pipe (in most cases before the catalytic converter), and actually sense the amount of oxygen that is being run through your exhaust system. This reading will then tell the car whether there is too much, or not enough oxygen being mixed with your gas. Too much oxygen causes the vehicle to run “lean”, not enough causes it to run “rich”.

When an engine is running lean it is dumping more air into the cylinder, creating a hotter explosion. This can lead to overheating the combustion chambers, which then leads to pre-ignition or knocking. This can also burn a hole right through the piston. New pistons equals more natural resources being pulled from our earth to produce them, and more energy used to pack and ship them. That is a very bad thing.

Running an engine rich adds more gasoline to the mixture causing your engine to run a bit more sluggish and show a significant decrease in fuel economy. This will also leave a nasty build-up on your spark plugs and valves. Over a significant amount of time, running your engine rich could end up killing it. Add to that the fact that this is also highly hazardous to our environment and this is also a very bad thing.

The average vehicle will have one to four O2 sensors, each monitoring the engines air-fuel mixture in different areas. The more sensors available, the more chance the vehicle will have better performance and less impact on the environment.

So, the next time your car is heading to the doctors for a check-up, don’t forget to ask him to take a look at its oxygen sensors. It can end up adding years to the life of your car, saving you some dough and saving the environment all at once.