Car Failure

Autumm arrived some days ago. Season for rains, flus and vaccines. People can get vaccinated, but not cars. And my car cought a cold! Therefore, something had been broken inside. It was kind enough to warn me, ligthing this little signal. But I didn´t know exactly what was wrong.

Well, there were other signs: It didn´t accelerate well (fastly) and it gave jerks. Neither the CO2 emissions were appropiate (as the people at the ITV told me.)

So, here is a little quiz, for those of you who would like to find out what happened to my car. An extra clue: The problem was solved by replacing only one part.

Have you thought a little about it? Let´s have a look to a little explanation:

• The engine needs mainly two things to work: Fuel and air. But the proportion between them is very important. It has to be an exact rate depending on the requirements, to achieve good fuel consumptions, low CO2 emissions and an appropiate performance.
• In modern cars, the device that informs the engine about the quantity of oxygen needed is the "oxigen sensor" or also called "lambda sond". This part was the origin of the misfunction.

I carried the car to the garage. The mechanic used a hand-held tester to figure out the problem. It told him that two different parts could be wrong. After checking the spark plugs (they were in order), he concluded that the oxygen sensor was the cause of the failure. They hadn´t the spare part there. Then, we ordered other and the next day he changed it.

Althougt it is a little gadget, it´s expensive. In my case, it lasted for about 140.000 Km without being replaced. That seems to me a good average. I hope that the new one would last for other 140.000 more!

Now, the perfomance has come back to the usual rate. Finally, I can trust on it to overtake with guarantees.