Monday, February 06, 2006

#559 Van Has a Headache

Monday, 02/06/06

I got a call from the folks who have my van. There are a series of sensors on the van that tell the computer if something isn't working right, and if one of them senses a problem, the "get service soon" light goes on. The guy told me Saturday that it's almost always a problem with the sensor itself, not what it's sensing.

So yup, it's the blah-blah-blah something-or-other oxygen sensor on the van that's bad, and they're going to replace it, for a hair over $200. The oxygen, by the way, is just fine.

That's why people drive around all the time with that light on, because it's usually the sensor that's bad. However, if the light is on at inspection, it's an automatic "fail" in New York State, regardless of why it's on.

There's something very silly about the whole thing. You go getting fancy, you raise the risk of bugs. More not-very-important things to expensively break, and for NYS to insist that you expensively fix, regardless of what's actually wrong.

No comments: