I just purchased a 97E420 a couple of weeks ago. I had the car out on Saturday and put 91 ocatane gas in, from generic gas station. Shortly after that the CEL came on while driving, along with "check engine electronics". There is not any signs of problem with the car while driving. Runs great.

Brought the car to Autozone today to have them do the free diagnostic. It came up with 8 error codes having to do with the oxygen sensors all 4 of them. I am inclined to think that the gas from the "generic" gas station caused this. What is the likely hood of 4 o2 censors going at once.

The codes that came up are 1580, 156, 161, 141, 432, 150, 130, 136. All PO prefix.

Please let me know what you think anyone.

Karen Bickford
Bolton MA

 

Well, buying another brand of higher octane gas would answer your question. You can get 93 octane, right?

On the other hand, plenty of folks buy 91 octane gas from discount stations and don't get fault codes for all four O2 sensors at once. I haven't looked up the codes so I'm going by what you said.

 

Hi Karen.
Codes are all O2 sensor problems but the profile of the faults may be significant.

PO130 Bank1 Sensor1 Circuit
PO141 Bank1 Sensor2 Sensor Heater Circuit
PO150 Bank1 Sensor1 Circuit
P0136 Bank1 Sensor2 Circuit Malfunction

P0156 Bank2 Sensor2 Circuit Malfunction
P0158 Bank2 Sensor2 High Voltage
P0161 Bank2 Sensor2 Sensor Heater Circuit
P0432 Bank2 Sensor2 Cat Efficiency Below Threshold

Occurs on both banks involving both upstream and downstream sensors.
Bank1 operating differently to Bank2
Both Banks have Circuit problems. (i.e. Outside parameters during "startup" checks)
Bank2 is unable to provide closed loop control

OK. It happened when you refuelled.
As Lugnut suggests different gas must be the first suspect. Octane does not NORMALLY cause a problem since the EMS (Engine Management System) resets engine parameters to take account of this however if the system is running outside normal operating parameters (wear/age etc.) it can tip the balance.
More likely it is some form of contamination since both banks have gone simultaneously. See http://www.picotech.com/auto/lambda_sensor.html if you would like to know more.
Refuelling will not get rid of the CEL. You will need to get Autozone to reset the EMS ECU and in addition get rid of the suspect fuel BEFORE refuelling.
If you are LUCKY all might be OK but if the CEL comes on again you should get Autozone to do the following BEFORE replacing all the O2 sensors. Check if the 02 sensors are working correctly! This only takes a moment and can be observed thru the use of a simple OBD scanner. Autozone will have one of these. If the sensors are not functioning correctly there could be other causes like damaged wiring although this is unlikely.
Worse case senario is that contaminated fuel, a head gasket leak etc has not only knocked out your sensors but also damaged Bank2 cat and presumably also Bank1.
Good luck.
Stuart

 

she also got P1580 fault code.

it wasn't mentioned.

 

Hi Sleepwalker.
I assumed, possibly incorrectly, that the code was P0158 rather than PO1580 (too many numbers) or P1580 (I don't have a definition)
Regards. Stuart

 

yes. ea/cc/isc

 

Hi Sleepwalker
ea/cc/isc?
stuart

 

no. i am lazy in typing so i make a short cut which means it's about the throttle valve actuator.
it's P1580 alright.

i'm just sure if karen made a typing error. it can the P0158 also that makes sense according to your post above because they all deal with O2 sensors.

if all 4 sensors goes faulty at the same time, then i always look somewhere else because they merely get wrong value..too high, too low, etc.

in the case of S600 W220 for example, if the oil from pressure sensor goes up to the ECU, all O2 sensors registers the fault.

if the M16/1 on karen's car got faulty, then there will be a bad mixture which overshoot the O2's value and thought it was faulty? the CEL will be "on".

i can't really decide without doing actual tests on it. just a guess for now.

 

Karen may have filled up on the same day as the tanker truck delivered gas to the station and got a tankful of sediment along with the gas.

The CEL for O2 sensors will turn off by themselves after a few cold starts, won't they? Could also disconnect battery to speed process.

My priority would be to simply turn the CEL off to see if it will turn on again. That's always my first move. I never push the panic button first.

 

on some US models, simple things such as loose fuel tank cap can also trigger the CEL.

however, bad fuel can show some different engine behaviour such as shaking, misfiring, sluggish acceleration, limited RPM, etc.

seems she don't get any of those. the O2 sensor tells she got bad air/fuel mixture which points directly to the fuel too.