I'm certain there are many who already know this but it came to mind in a conversation with a fellow Bronco owner and my brother the other day. My buddy had a consistent "rich" condition. Not extreme but enough that he noticed a change in fuel economy. He had been through every filter and fix, changed oil and trans fluid. Pulled codes and got nothing but 1's. So we were discussing it and the topic turned to "What happened to the truck lately?" or at least since he noticed the mileage change. The only thing he could recall was having run over a large plastic trash bag that got itself caught under the truck. as he rolled over... what are the odds right? We crawled under his rig and sure enough there was his problem... Black trash bag melted to the body of the O2 sensor. We didn't even replace the sensor, we grabbed a razor blade and scraped the sensor clean. His economy has come back by almost 3 mpg since.

So, if you are of the mind that the O2 sensor doesn't affect much, you might want to rethink that notion. An O2 sensor MUST have both the tip and metal body clean and clear of debris to function properly.

 

Great tip/info.

 

Well done, great tip.

And I guess finding a plastic bag up there is still much better than finding a melted skunk........

 

Yeah, the plastic eventually quits smelling... so does the skunk I suppose but who could live with it that long?

 

I did not know that. This is also why whenever I run over a plastic bag I watch behind me to make sure it didn't stick to my ride.

 

He actually noticed that the bag had not exited behind him and he stopped. But he just pulled it out from under the truck and didn't look to see where it had lodged. He figured it had just snagged not melted to the exhaust. He neglected to look at the bag. Had he done so he would have seen the melted portion and might have caught this much sooner. C'est la vie.

 

Saw a car on the freeway the other day, running about 65mph, pushing/dragging a 3' traffic cone that was hung up just past the bumper. How do you not notice that?

 

Things like that just astound me. I have seen similar things in my travels and I just have to sit there and marvel at the supreme obliviousness and/or idiocy of some drivers.

 

When I was driving a wrecker for a living, I'd see all kinds of weird stuff on the roads. My cab-over was a great vantage point to see what people were doing in their cars. I saw a woman driving with one knee on the steering wheel, head tilted back, putting what looked like eye drops in her eye. I've seen them applying full makeup at 75mph on the Interstate, using the visor mirror and steering with a knee. I've seen people roll up with music playing so loud, I couldn't hear the radio in my truck over it, and I've seen people lost in cell phone debates, oblivious to anything around them. (even to the 17 ton flatbed wrecker about to T-bone them as they pull out in front of me) One school bus operator pulled out right in front of me while I was on the highway, loaded with 3 cars on the back, my yellow rollers going and all, with a perfectly clear flat road visible for miles in both directions. I barely had time to stop, and I actually was looking for a place to ditch the truck as an option if I had to avoid hitting the bus full of kids. To make things even worse, she not only pulled out in front of me, but then she flipped the red lights on and came to a stop to drop kids off. The parents waiting there all saw what she did, and I called her supervisor to report that.

The cone thing you mentioned is pretty funny though, I've seen that happen too. One old lady in a big car picked up several of them as she kept driving down the lane that was closed for repair.. I don't know where those cones went, but they never came out of the back of her car!

p.s. I also saw a guy in a 10 wheeler turn around in a driveway, catch and crush a big steel trashcan between the rear duals, and then he just took off down the street, sparks flying as he dragged the can along and that was LOUD. He never even noticed. Hide your kids when that guy is driving by..

As for the original post, that's interesting, I never knew the O2 was so sensitive to coatings, though I do know that the O2 is very important for proper engine tuning.

 

It's really amazing the kind of stuff you can pick up, when you're just out cruising around and minding your own business...........

 

That's not what I find on my Bronco