Not that I had noticed...... GM used to make oil pressure sensors that lasted longer than the engines.... now, on some vehicles, if you change the oil, you might just as well change the sensor too..... Yes, they really were that bad.

 

I meant that the technology of the oxygen sensors, specifically, improved. They got some resistance wire (heaters) added to them that enables them to last about half again as long as without it. That's a pretty good bump for a trivial additional investment. The problem is that it makes the damn sensor a part that's unlikely to fail under warranty, so nobody wants to invest engineering time into it to maintain the cool algorithm we used to use to determine when it was time to go into closed loop that had the side effect of detecting the normal sensor end of life condition so we could know about it. It was still just as possible to do it and in just the same way, but there was no good capitalist reason to devote resources to it.

And it's just soooooo close. We gots us a misfire monitor looking at that data... Oh well. Ya can't always get what ya want, but we did get most of it so I can't really bitch with great feeling about it.

Remember when you used to get a CEL right at 60,000.0 miles and lots of cars with stacked faults in the code queues behind it because owners learned to ignore the light until the repair got expensive? The little piece of resistance wire is what made that go away. Overall, losing the cool algorithm was a good trade even though it's got downsides. Couldn't have got a 10 year/100,000 mile warranty without it, so the other upgrades we got along with it to make that warranty happen depended upon it. I like port injection. It makes the engines last long enough that it's important to know what a punked oxygen sensor feels like. And remember it for next time, too. That's a pretty good trade. Saves me a ton of money and a lot of bother.

It kinda pisses me off that I've got more reasonable as I've got older. I was hoping to get cantankerous.

 

There is still time.

Another advantage of the heated O2 sensor was, it warmed up, and became useful MUCH faster than the non-heated fellers....... The engine controller could use the data that much sooner, and fuel economy improved.....

One would think that a sensor that stays stuck at a single value, regardless of what dance the PCM did to try and get it to change.... would clue the PCM that just maybe, the sensor has failed...... but hey, ya just never know.

 

Yeah... It really shouldn't happen that an engine control fault so obvious to the operator is invisible to the PCM when the PCM's got all the data needed to easily detect it. The feeble early 1980's ECU's did a fine job of it -- monitor the sensor output while still running open loop, and should it happen to enter and linger in the normal range, trust it and go closed loop. If it doesn't get there in some reasonable period of time, turn on the CEL and stay open loop. It's just offensive to me that that got thrown away and replaced with blindly trusting the thing if it just doesn't appear to have been smashed with a hammer.

Eh, I like my goofy old truck just fine in spite of it and getting cantankerous just seems like too much bother. I'm off for a drive to the marijuana store instead and hoping the tourists and truckers will let me be.

 

You sellin' or buyin'?

 

Heh. If I was growing I surely wouldn't be driving nearly 90 miles each way to a pot shop! It'd seem that there couldn't really be much of a better day driving than rolling through the Rockies in June on the way to a legal marijuana store, but tourists and truckers just take a lot of the fun right out of it.

Imagine the sanest driver you see all day is in a bright red 488 GTB. She was just out enjoying the day, same as I was. A soccer mom in a Lexus crossover performed a detailed study of my rear bumper, then for some reason remained committed to passing after it was abundantly clear that her funny little car lacked sufficient power to get the job done before the oncoming semis arrived. I had to move onto the shoulder to give her room to tunnel between me and the trucks.

Probably should have canceled the cruise control, too, but it didn't seem to be my turn to panic.

 

You gotta get a camera!

 

Doesn't YouTube have enough dashcam videos already? It seems that by now all it really takes to show what any given highway fkup looked like is to find the video of it happening the exact same way in Russia, and say "just like that, only it was in English instead of Russian that the other driver was called an idiot".

 

Driving to the vet today, watched some soon-to-be darwin award winner, do a U-turn in midday traffic on US 223... Five lanes wide, and they used all five....... There are some really cool black marks on the road now, from BOTH directions..... For a moment, the air around the area was on lovely shade of blue..... and lots of folks were waving... Oh wait, maybe they were shaking their fists? Could be.....

 

Ain't it curious how folks value convenience ahead of survival?