roninbambi
New member
The CEL has been thrown for several months now after several things have occurred. The van is at about 110k miles and has (to my knowledge), had all O2 sensors replaced (I have yet to port scan it, and have not eyeballed the MAF sensor to see if it is out of line, but don't believe so).
The van threw a CEL about the same time as the 02 sensors went out because it needed a new catalyst. The Toyota Cat was about $2000, so my parents (who own it) opted to get an aftermarket, but (supposedly, haha) OEM spec Cat for cheaper. SUPPOSEDLY, the location that installed this states that the CEL is something only Toyota can remove.
Obviously, if it were my car, I would have taken it back and informed the mechanics that obviously this part did not match OEM and to fix on their dime, but this is not possible: the van is now 2500 miles away from that location.
Supposedly too, Toyota can replace the car's cpu to fix this (according to Toyota) but this sounds bogus to me, and about $1800, because the cpu would read factory spec on the Cat only, and if there's any temp difference with the new Cat (which is my suspicion), the ONLY fix would be to have the cpu re-tuned with new software, not hardware, to inform it that either the cpu should 1) read a new temp or 2) no longer search for whichever sensor (most likely the one post-cat reading exhaust temp, by my reasoning, due to the time at which this CEL got thrown).
This is compounded further:
1) cost: the car is old, why bother spending a lot on it?
2) don't want a new cpu from a dealer.
3) the car is moving to Colorado, with very strict emissions, so if a CEL is on, it won't pass, and if the CEL is simply bypassed, it will show "not ready" on a port scan and still not pass.
Anyone have any ideas?
The van threw a CEL about the same time as the 02 sensors went out because it needed a new catalyst. The Toyota Cat was about $2000, so my parents (who own it) opted to get an aftermarket, but (supposedly, haha) OEM spec Cat for cheaper. SUPPOSEDLY, the location that installed this states that the CEL is something only Toyota can remove.
Obviously, if it were my car, I would have taken it back and informed the mechanics that obviously this part did not match OEM and to fix on their dime, but this is not possible: the van is now 2500 miles away from that location.
Supposedly too, Toyota can replace the car's cpu to fix this (according to Toyota) but this sounds bogus to me, and about $1800, because the cpu would read factory spec on the Cat only, and if there's any temp difference with the new Cat (which is my suspicion), the ONLY fix would be to have the cpu re-tuned with new software, not hardware, to inform it that either the cpu should 1) read a new temp or 2) no longer search for whichever sensor (most likely the one post-cat reading exhaust temp, by my reasoning, due to the time at which this CEL got thrown).
This is compounded further:
1) cost: the car is old, why bother spending a lot on it?
2) don't want a new cpu from a dealer.
3) the car is moving to Colorado, with very strict emissions, so if a CEL is on, it won't pass, and if the CEL is simply bypassed, it will show "not ready" on a port scan and still not pass.
Anyone have any ideas?