So my CEL light pops up the day after a 3 hour highway drive out of town. It actually started by blinking for 30 seconds or so, right after filling up, and went solid orange before i could find a place to pull over.

Usually I only do short fast drives in and around the city, and get a P0420 every 800 km or so, because of Brullen headers. Also have a PDM intake. It's no big inconvenience to just read it with my AutoXray and clear the code.

Checked the code once I got home, got the P0130, (O2 sensor circuit malfuntion) also a P0171 (system too lean).

The P0130 code comes on within a few minutes of clearing. The P0171 came up as pending once since, after an hour of freeway driving.

It doesn't seem too lean, still get little popping burbling backfires when shifting, from unburnt fuel igniting in the exhaust. Runs OK otherwise, but there have been a few weeks of unsteady or high idleing when cold. I just upgraded my Autoxray reader to a scanner, to get freeze frame data, also for live monitoring. The code comes up with a spurious high short term fuel trim 37.5% Sometimes the long term fuel trim is as low as -10%. I got extremely variable gas mileage on the two fills since it came up. My best mileage ever, followed by my worst mileage ever.

I have done some searching on this, and it seems the P0130 typically is an indication of the front O2 sensor starting to fail. Could anything else cause this code? Do the headers cause this in any way and will it be a recurring problem? Does it just need checking for loose conections, dirt, or carbon rather than just replacing?

Jim

 

hey man I threw this code like 30 times, and it made my car run like complete crap. 1st my gas milage went from 22 MPG to 11MPG, and then I kept trashing spark plugs.... The easiest and only way is to make sure your static fuel pressure is ok, and you HAVE to replace the front o2 sensor ASAP.. once you do this your car will be happy!, and you might be too.