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That time a customer argued their O2 sensor was fine for 20 minutes
Last Tuesday a guy rolls in with a 2010 Civic throwing a P0420 code. He swears up and down the O2 sensor is fine, says his buddy scanned it at AutoZone. I pulled the sensor anyway, showed him the cracked ceramic and the soot buildup. He still tried to argue until I let him watch the live data stream on my scanner. Some people just don't want to believe the sensor is the issue even when the numbers are right there. Anybody else get customers who fight you on the obvious fix?
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fisher.mason1mo ago
Hear me out but sometimes the guy has a point. I've seen those old Hondas throw cat codes from a simple exhaust leak or bad plugs way before the sensor actually dies. That live data might show a lazy sensor but the root cause is something else.
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laurabennett1mo ago
Right? I've been that guy way too many times. Spent a whole weekend chasing an O2 sensor on my '91 Civic, replaced it, cleared the code, and bam it came right back. Turned out a cracked vacuum hose was leaning it out so bad the computer thought the cat was dead. Made me feel like a real genius, you know, the kind who installs parts for fun then has to eat crow. So yeah, sometimes the "lazy sensor" is just a symptom of me being lazy with the actual diagnosis first.
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