I have been told that if i the lambda sensor on my tintop should be changed at 100k to improve fuel consumption but im not sure. Surely if the sensor is working fine, it wont make a difference whether i change it or not?

They will ouput the correct value, but resonse time slows down. As long as it is not too slow to cause engine light errors it will have little effect.
Darren

i would have thought that after loads of use,the heating an cooling could ffect the resitance of the sensor ever so slightly so the sensor will be giving slightly wrong results.

jut athought, could be very wrong

britishtrident posted about this a little while ago. Cant remember all the info but it boils down to the fact that old lambda sensors can cause all sorts of issues.

I wouldnt bother changing it considering you just want the ruddy thing to be on the road

As all of the above, , the design life is about 8 years after that changing the uppstream sensor tends to make MOTs a bit less fraught and gives a slight increase in mpg.

Modern sensor are a bit more long lived than ones on cars made more than tean years ago because the US government forced car manufacturers to give an 8 year warranty on emmision related parts.

you will know if its needs changing, the car will run like crap, wont be smooth or anything, had issues with them before.

quote:

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Originally posted by goaty
you will know if its needs changing, the car will run like crap, wont be smooth or anything, had issues with them before.

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I changed mine about a month ago, as last years MOT was very nearly a fail, due emmisions, and MOT is at 1330 today, so will let you know if the emissions are any better

Strange thing, is i am sure my MPG has gone down , not up, on the good side, hesitation has stopped, and the engine seems quiter, and previosley always stalled at the end of my road in the morning, especially when its cold

Car hasnt done that in the last month

steve

Cheers for the replys.

The car is 12 yrs old and has done 108k but runs fine, just slightly lumpy (probably due to fuel filter not having been changed for 7 yrs :mad

If the MPg increase is only going to be very marginall, il wait till the locost is on the road and i have some money

Passed its MOT. and all emmisions, considrably less than last year, so a change in Lambda did work

Steve

The degradation with lambda sensors is so slow you tend to adjust to the driveability issues that and old sluggish sensor causes. I just changed the one on my Fiat recently (106k miles old) as I noticed the mpg had dropped slightly and it has immediately brought back the mileage to the same as when I first got it.

At 100k+ miles the sensor is going to be significantly degraded, even if it's still working to some extent.