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I have a 2002 Civic LX that has been giving me some trouble lately. It has 200,000 miles, so it's far from a new car, but it's been very well taken care of and runs great for the most part.

Earlier this year it blew a head gasket which i tore down, had the head milled and pressure tested for cracks. Everything was good, so I put a new top end gasket set on, as well as a timing belt, and water pump. Fired the car up and it would run great for a while, then throw a P1362 code for the TDC sensor and go into limp mode. I tore the timing cover back off, and replaced both the TDC sensor, and the Crank position sensor. Started the car back up, ran great, so i completely re-assembled it and started driving it. Within a day i got a P1457 signifying a leak in the evap system. Did some more reading and narrowed it down to the Evap canister valve being a common failure. Swapped that for a brand new part, car continues to run great. I drive it to work the next day, and now i'm getting a P0131 Primary O2 sensor low voltage.

Before i spend more money on an O2 sensor, is there something i'm missing here? It seems like every time i fix something, another issue pops up. This car ran great until it popped a head gasket. Is it possible that my ECU is fried? Catalyitic converter is bad?

I have HPtuners for tuning my LS1 Camaro, and it allows me to do real time datalogging and code reading even on the civic, so i've been using it to help diagnose

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm probably going to go home tonight and clean all of the body grounds in case that is the culprit, but i don't want to keep dumping money into this car, as it's just a DD beater car.

Thanks

 
Rep Power: 517

Evap code is unrelated, that should be obvious.

Replace the O2 sensor with the OEM brand (it was either NTK or DENSO), don't let DangerZone sell you a botch or wells or any other brand of sensor.

If antifreeze went through the exhaust either while driving with the bad head gasket or during repairs, it could have contaminated the sensor.
OTOH if you made it to 200k on an original sensor, it could have just been time to replace it. 150-180k seems like a typical mileage for failures on that sensor in my area.

AFTER the computer has good O2 sensors working that don't set fault codes, it will run its on-board cat tests and decide if it is good or bad.
You can check the OBD readiness test status to see when that test has run, and check if it passed or failed.

 
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Edit: Didn't read you're entire post, i think you answered my question.

Guess i'll replace the O2 and pray for a good CAT

 
Rep Power: 517

The car has 200k on it....none of us have a crystal ball......you need to expect that some crap just happens.
Fix whatever comes up as needed and continue driving.


At work....we sometimes say a lot of stuff just seems to happen in threes.


Handy pic of a crystal ball:

 
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I understand that. That is why i prefaced my initial question with this information. However, the car has been extremely well taken care of, is in very good shape for the age, and didn't have these issues prior to the head gasket and timing belt repair. Just trying to trace my steps and figure out why i have a new service engine light every time a fix an issue. I would have thought I would get multiple codes from the get-go, if these issues were present. To date, I've never had more than code at a time.

Thank you for your information

 
Rep Power: 132

The issues you have are issues that are common enough for this car that I wouldn't throw in the towel yet. I guess "when it rains it pours" is what comes to mind. FWIW, I have gone through all 3 of these issues on my Acura EL (and more). Just swap in a OEM Denso O2 sensor in the exhaust manifold in the engine bay and you should be good.

 
Rep Power: 221

The car is probably just at a point where you've exceeded the design life of some of the components. If they were original to the car and just starting to fail at 200k miles that's pretty damn good in my opinion. At the end of the day, $500 or even $1000 of repairs to a solid, dependable vehicle beats the hell out of 5-7 years of $200-$300 monthly payments.

 
Rep Power: 209

Put a strip of black eletrical tape over the CEL light... problem solved

 
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Put a new Denso O2 sensor in, and now i'm getting a P0420 Catalyst System Efficiency Below Threshold (Bank 1)

Car seems to run great, i'm just going to keep driving it.

 
Rep Power: 517

At least your gas mileage should go back to normal with the good sensor in it.

 
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Yeah the old O2 sensor was in pretty rough shape. The protective cap was completely missing from the end of the sensor and the ceramic was falling apart / crumbling. I'm shocked i didn't have any codes until now.

 
Rep Power: 517

I've seen the little thimble break off the end of a sensor and that piece eventually bores its way right through the guts of the cat converter, ruining it.