I thought unhooking the battery and resetting the ecu to base would just make the car have bad acceleration unless you sat in idle with the engine on for like 5-10 minutes after first start before driving?
Also the fuel trims were more normal, maxing out at around 20-25 when flooring the gas pedal (I don't drive around just flooring the gas whenever I feel like it, I was just testing to see if codes would come back). The first p0172 and check engine light took about 4-5 hours of driving time to come back on. I know how to check the fuel trims but I'm not sure how to watch the ratio with the Blue Driver scanner on live data.

 

Removing battery is like reset most [very few are hard errors] and recenters the observations. I have only noticed a slight hesitation or higher rpms on the idle, but that again reestablishes pretty quickly.

Reset by scanner is code based reset [the cheepo scanner I have is pretty basic].

Salim

 

Well, good news and bad news...
Good news: I found out what the new issue is with my car
Bad news: it's an extremely annoying (to my knowledge) part to replace.

Looks like my Bank 2 Sensor 1 A/F sensor needs to be replaced. Anyone have any good videos/threads that help explain how to replace it?
Also is it a bad idea to get a cheap aftermarket A/F sensor or does it not matter for car performance as long as it works?

 

Just looked up a single video and watched for a few seconds and realized I might be dumb. Is bank 2 sensor 1 in the front or back of the engine? If it is the front then I answered my question of aftermarkets because I replaced that one and not the one I said earlier in this post...

I will replace this with a OEM / Denso part and get back to ya'll later on what happens
edit: I know I have the code and everything but I don't think it would hurt to take the car for a drive and look at the graphs for voltage, see what they are saying. Should I do that to make sure or does the code mean it's 100% this part. (just asking cause OEM is like $200)

 

 

So the part that I replaced on the front was an eBay "OEM" a/f ratio sensor, but the graph of voltage for it is stuck between .630 and .660 so I'm 99% sure that it's a dud. It also had a 60 day return policy that expired 9 days ago, and it was probably a dud the entire time and I just didn't realize cause I was looking at bank 1 sensor 1 and not bank 2 sensor 1 where it was installed, whoops.
In order to avoid that, I will be buying a new one from Rock Auto which is "OEM Denso" but probably actually OEM this time, for $140 instead of $290 (from manufacturer). I will order this tomorrow unless someone says that's a bad idea before then.

 

https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo...&pt=5132&jsn=3
I have this ordered and coming in the mail on Wednesday

 

don’t feel bad, it’s pretty unusual for bank #1 to be closer to the firewall and not the front of the car. The way you can always tell which bank is #1 is to first identify which way the engine is pointing. The side with accessories like the alternator and A/C compressor is the front of the engine and if you look at from the front the #1 is going to be on the right side. One bank will be a couple inches ahead of the other bank. And bank #1 will be the one that is ahead of the other side. Another topic, there should be a diagnostic port specifically for the O2 sensors under the hood. My memory is not great anymore but I am pretty sure your vehicle will have a diagnostic port for the emissions equipment somewhere under the hood near the ECU. You can pull up on YouTube how to use it. But it can be more helpful when trying to confirm the O2 sensors are working and can run a test on each one to make sure they are working correctly or not.

 

I think of numbering in the classic way [RWD]

Back
5 || 6
3 || 4
1 || 2
FRONT

For RX the engine was spun 90 degrees clockwise.

Salim

 

well this is annoying... I paid extra for shipping to get it on Wednesday (yesterday) and they won't even talk to me about it until Tuesday the 16th about it not being shipped.


anyone else ever have this problem with rockauto?

Edit: they gave the package to UPS a day after it was supposed to arrive, when I paid an extra 7 bucks in shipping to get it earlier, I am gonna be fuming if I don't get a refund on the shipping costs for getting it 3 days late due to their error.

 

Okay so new sensor installed, p0172 (bank 1 too rich) was still there after about 50 miles of driving time, it popped back up. I used the live graph on the blue driver scanner and the voltage is fluctuating normally now as it should. At this point the only thing I think it could be is either a VERY small vacuum leak, or the MAF sensor. (I did a smoke test on the car with a machine from amazon a few months back and im 95% confident there was no leaking smoke, but then again, it was hard to see the smoke.)

I say the MAF sensor because when the car is idling, it sits at 7 g/s ish when warm and around 17-19 at 2500 rpm's. I've been told normal is around 3 when the car is warm. We do swap the MAF sensor's between my car and my dad's because the 2006 Toyota highlander hybrid has the exact same part down to part number and they both sit at around 7's. The one thing I haven't tried yet is when cleaning it with MAF cleaner, I have only been cleaning the red bulb on there, but I saw a video a while ago that said you also need to clean the 2 hidden prongs behind and up above the red bulb as well. Could cleaning those prongs fix the high idle thing? Or should I try to get a junkyard OEM MAF sensor for like $30 and try that?

(Edit: I should mention, the car is running fine, 0 misfires at all. The only visible problems is the engine codes and the MPG average was 3 less than the original before the whole mess started.)

 

Hey yall I'm back with the issues again...

This time I am getting the p0172 code (Bank 1 too rich). Except this time the code pops up like 2 times monthly after a lot of driving to and from college (maybe ~2 - 300 miles per pop up). What's confusing me is the fact that the car starts and runs perfectly. Almost no hesitation starting up from cold start, 0 misfires whatsoever, etc.

Normally I would ignore the code at this point but whenever I start the car, sometimes if I step out of the car in the first few minutes, there is a fairly strong smell of gas that goes away after a few minutes. I have already checked for gas leaks around the fuel rail and fuel injectors, and I don't see anything leaking around the fuel pump under the car. I will check for an exhaust leak when I get home tonight just to rule that out but I don't think that could cause that code.

Does anyone have any ideas?

(Also unrelated but maybe not idk, I was getting a p0115 (open circuit in the ECT sensor) around the same frequency as the p0172 and I replaced that sensor. I don't think that code will pop up but it's only been a week since I replaced it so we will see.)

 

The code is related to bank1 [firewall side], so fuel tank/gas-cap may not be an appropriate fail point.

If visually you can not find an open hose or crack in hose, then have it smoke tested. Bad/leaking injector might be another cause. These are all a short list of possible causes, and proper diagnosis requiring smoke machine is needed.

Salim

 

I did not do the exhaust leak check yet or anything that you mentioned I should try but I did notice something.

Last night while eating food in park with the engine on for like 5 minutes, I felt a very small engine misfire. So small that you could only see the rpms go up by 100 or 200 and only hear it if no radio and no ac at all, and not even feel the car shake at all. It did that like 2 times at most while in park, and the rest of the time it was smooth running, 0 problems.

Now I have no idea what it could be, but going off my gut I think it's spark plugs or coils, but going off the p0172, I would think its one of the injectors? Problem is I haven't smelt the fuel in a while and it's never leaking, I check after short and long drives (10-40 minute) and I don't smell anything or see any liquid on the engine.

I have a feeling the smoke test would give me the same result as the previous smoke test I did like a year ago, but I can do it if you recommend I do it. Any other ideas?

 

So my gut is telling me its a spark plug, and I did not replace them when I got the car 40k miles ago as well as I don't have a service history on the car, so I am replacing them just to check but also to have fresh ones. (Only $60 for all 6 anyway). So today I got the easy from 3 replaced and one of the 3 was a Denso spark plug. Now to me that means that I had a spark plug in my car that is 280k miles old (Because the other 2 were offbrand), but the gap looked fine to take that with a grain of salt. But one of the other 2 had a .50 gap instead of a .42 (like the new Bosch's that I got). No idea if that affects anything but yea.

I have not taken the car for a drive since the replacement but I assume since its a bank 1 issue, IF it was a spark plug, it would be in the 3 that I didn't replace. So I will do that sometime this weekened, if not next week.

But working off the assumption that this won't fix the issue, since multiple people have said it's likely not, any other suggestions?