cost of O2 sensor for 95 Legacy?

B

bex

AAA-approved repair shop said the replacement part would be $259 (plus
labor). I don't know if my particular car has more than one O2 sensor
(Chilton manual seems to indicate only one), and I'm seeing prices on the
web much lower than this (50, 100 dollars), though my newsgroup and web
googling shows cases of O2 sensors costing about as much. Am I missing
something? It seems overly expensive. I can't call them until tomorrow.
It's a 1995 Legacy L.

Thanks,
Rebecca
 
bex said:
AAA-approved repair shop said the replacement part would be $259 (plus
labor). I don't know if my particular car has more than one O2 sensor
(Chilton manual seems to indicate only one), and I'm seeing prices on
the web much lower than this (50, 100 dollars), though my newsgroup
and web googling shows cases of O2 sensors costing about as much. Am
I missing something? It seems overly expensive. I can't call them
until tomorrow. It's a 1995 Legacy L.

95 Legacy (like mine) has two, one before the cat and one after - and yes
you should be able to get them for less than 100$US. The upstream one is
more important - if this dies the ECU will run the car in "limp" mode,
excessively rich - I think the downstream one is just to detect whether the
cat is working or not.
 
Dominic Richens said:
95 Legacy (like mine) has two, one before the cat and one after - and yes
you should be able to get them for less than 100$US. The upstream one is
more important - if this dies the ECU will run the car in "limp" mode,
excessively rich - I think the downstream one is just to detect whether the
cat is working or not.
--

Thanks for the affirmation. I called two Subaru dealers this morning,
figuring their price on parts would be on the high side in general for OEM
parts. I was quoted 126 or 142 per sensor. I called my garage and asked
what was up - turns out the aftermarket parts they usually buy aren't always
cheaper, so they'll be buying the sensor from somewhere else.

By "limp" mode - would this explain why the car seems to hesitate a bit upon
acceleration at times? It seems to give a little bit of a lurch. The code
that came up was for slow response, not total malfunction.

Rebecca
 
$(e-mail address removed)>,
(e-mail address removed) says...
By "limp" mode - would this explain why the car seems to hesitate a bit upon
acceleration at times? It seems to give a little bit of a lurch. The code
that came up was for slow response, not total malfunction.

"Normal" operations involve the computer (ECU)
receiving readings from various sensors around
engine, including the oxygen sensors. The ECU
adjusts engine operations based on those
readings, in normal operation. If the ECU
determines one or more sensors are giving
readings outside normal limits, it's programmed
to go into "limp home" mode, where it runs by a
pre-programmed set of values that are very
protective & conservative. This is based on the
assumption that if the sensor readings fail the
sanity check, don't use em.

The "slow response" is typical for either sensor
or cat failure.

When the ECU runs in limp home mode, engine
performance will be pretty limp, too 8^)
 

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