Check Engine Light

[mriggs]

My wife has a 2000 Model Camry. At around 65 K the check engine light came on. Well as all of you know, the O2 sensor is expensive, so I waited. The dealer said it was an O2 sensor. I went to Autozone and bought a universal for it which meant I had to wire the connector in. The light came back on the next day. It has another O2 sensor behind the converter, so could it be that one instead??

[Erbe]

get it professionally inspected

[Edmond]

Originally posted by mriggs
My wife has a 2000 Model Camry. At around 65 K the check engine light came on. Well as all of you know, the O2 sensor is expensive, so I waited. The dealer said it was an O2 sensor. I went to Autozone and bought a universal for it which meant I had to wire the connector in. The light came back on the next day. It has another O2 sensor behind the converter, so could it be that one instead??

It could be. The technician at Toyota should've stated, through the scanner, which O2 sensor it was. Getting it professionally inspected is a good idea but that's not practical for some of us. It's not practical for me because I refuse to pay $80 for them to hook the scanner up.

I was told that Auto Zone would do it for free. But when I took my 94' there, they said they couldn't do it because it didn't have the right plug. What gives?

[Nico]

I really do not think replacing one part after another that way will help you because it could be any kind of sensor. From my (small) experience I noticed temperature sensors were going wrong very often but it could be many other things as well.

What you should do anyway is after having replaced the o2 sensor (or any other sensor), you should reset the computer. For that, you can either take the injection fuse off for 15 seconds or disconnect the battery for about 30 minutes (I think).

The only way to know is definitely a diagnose.
In My Haynes manual they are talking on a way you can do the diagnose yourself. I'll be very honest with you I have never done it but it seems not to be complicated. You have to jump TE1 to E1 I think and count the number of times the light flashes. This number should correspond to an error code. If you need a list of all these codes or want to try that way, you can PM me so that I can send a copy to you...

Good luck anyway

[88 LE]

The TE1 & E1 trick won't work on cars with OBD-II.

You need a scanner.

[Nico]

Really didn't know about that. Too bad I think that is such a good system (even if I have never tried it ...)

[90CamryDx3SFE]

Originally posted by Edmond
I was told that Auto Zone would do it for free. But when I took my 94' there, they said they couldn't do it because it didn't have the right plug. What gives?

That's because they do OBD-II readings with those scanners. OBD-II Compliant cars are only available from 1996 and up.

1994 = No dice. OBD-I or something like that. More than likely you don't even have a plug.