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Apparently, my oxygen sensor went bad on my 04 civic. At about 60,000 miles. So, I have never tried to replace one of these. Any tips. Specifically, I have been looking for O2 sensors online and they list before catalyst and after catalyst sensors. Do civics have two....or do they have one or the other....either before catalyst or after catalyst? Also, the cheap ones require reuse of the old wires....is that a simple process? Thanks for any help.

 
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what engine do u have d17a1 or d17a2 or d17a6 or d17a9? its different between all of them, but there are at least 2 per car, if it is listed as bank 1 sensor 1, its the one before the cat, if its listed as bank1 sensor 2, then its post cat. hope this helps, welcome to the site, and use the damn search button in the future

 
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There are two, the primary is before the cat converter, and the secondary is after the cat converted. If you have a DX or LX, then your sensors are on your header. If you have an EX, then your second is going to be under your car. just a foot or two past the front bumper.

They arent hard to replace, its spimply unscrewing a bolt with an open ended wrench. Spark plug replacement is trickier.

If the wires need to be reusued, you may have to rewire it- that I cant speak on because I havent see the sensor your looking at and how the wires might connect to it and how well thoes connections would hold up down the road. Buying one with the wires would make your life easier.

Hope that gets at what you were asking. If not, post up.

 
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Hey guys thanks for the advice,

I do have the Bank1 Sensor1 readout, so I guess it is the before the cat sensor. The price difference between oxygen sensors that do and do not come with new wires is significant....either 60-75 w/o or 150-200 with. Does this sound right? That is a huge difference. I haven't looked at it the old sensor yet, but hopefully I can get the old wires out and into a new one without any sophistacted diagram action or soldering. It would save me about 75 bucks.

 
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oh yeah and I have the d17a1 engine.

 
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The wires arent complicated, its just two wires in some heat shrink that come up to a connector.

 
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I was out looking underneath my car the other day and couldn't find the oxygen sensor (before cat converter). Apparently, it is part of the combined cat converter/exhaust manifold system for my engine type.

I think there may be a splash shield covering the oxygen sensor? It also seems as if the connections for the splash shield will be hard to remove? Has anyone experienced this?

 
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look under your hood. you should see both of them. One closer up top, and one at the bottom. You can see both looking down from the hood.

 
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Oh ok, I assumed they were underneath the car near the exhaust.

Also, does it sound right that one would go out at 60,000 miles. A mechanic tried to tell me that he thought it may be something other than the sensor itself because he said they usually last much longer than 60,000 miles?

 
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yeah mine are still good and I am at 80k. You never said what made you think the sensor itself was bad. Did you run a code? What kind of condition are your spark plugs in? Maybe you are running too rich or too lean and that is why that sensor is throwing a code. Is it throwing a CEL?