I bought all new sensors for my 1998 Chevy Suburban
on Ebay in March of 2007. The sensors are suppose
to be Borg Warner brand, but they arrived in plain
white boxes with not BWD markings on the boxes or
the sensors. The two back sensors (the ones after
the cats) have now both failed; one failed over
the Summer, and one just recently. The two
front sensors seem to still be okay. When the
first sensor died, I just put one of the old sensors
back in; the error code did not come back.
I asked the seller if they had reports of problems
with these sensors, and they responded no and that
I most likely have a lean or rich fuel problem
burning them out. My questions are:
1) Can an engine problem cause O2 sensors to "burn out"?
2) If #1 is so, what is the most common problem to kill them?
3) If #1 is so, why have only the back sensors died?
4) Are Borg-Warner brand sensors unmarked?
5) What is the best brand of sensor?
6) What brand was originally used by the manufacturer?
(If AC delco, is Delphi the same thing?)
The history behind this started with a repeating
P0430 error code that would go away when replacing
the bank-2 cat, but would come back after a month
because the bank-2 cat dies. I believe this problem
has been fixed by replacing the fuel injection spider.
The car was driven for half a year before the sensors
were replaced; if the engine problem killed the sensors,
then why does it seem my original sensors are still good?
Thanks for any insight,
John Hermann
clifto - 25 Oct 2007 23:22 GMT
> I bought all new sensors for my 1998 Chevy Suburban
> on Ebay in March of 2007. The sensors are suppose
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
> I most likely have a lean or rich fuel problem
> burning them out.
If you have to replace a sensor that's a few months old with a sensor that's
nine years old, that tells me the new sensor was junk and there's no engine
condition that's damaging sensors.
Sounds like your seller has diagnosed his bottom line, and determined that
sensor replacement would be deleterious to the bottom line.

Signature
One meter, to within 0.0125% accuracy (off by just under .005 inches):
Three feet
Three inches
Three eights of an inch
Mike Walsh - 26 Oct 2007 16:08 GMT
> I bought all new sensors for my 1998 Chevy Suburban
> on Ebay in March of 2007. The sensors are suppose
[quoted text clipped - 12 lines]
>
> 1) Can an engine problem cause O2 sensors to "burn out"?
Yes.
> 2) If #1 is so, what is the most common problem to kill them?
A clogged catalytic converter will cause very high exhaust temperatures and burn out an O2 sensor.
An engine that occasionally runs too rich or misses will over a long period cause an O2 sensor to fail. On a good running engine the O2 sensors seem to last forever.
> 3) If #1 is so, why have only the back sensors died?
> 4) Are Borg-Warner brand sensors unmarked?
[quoted text clipped - 14 lines]
>
> John Hermann
philthy - 27 Oct 2007 15:23 GMT
it has been my experence that you can not skimp on 02 sensors oem is the
best way to go
o2 sensors can fail in two ways one is the heaters go bad and the other
the actual sesnors fail i have not seen many fail on this style truck
but have replaced a ton of cat.converters for failure of course
depending on codes recorded in the pcm
you get what you pay for in this world but whatever you do do not use
bosch products plugs foul easy and 02 sensors now come with connectors
off and u have to install them which results in early failure
> I bought all new sensors for my 1998 Chevy Suburban
> on Ebay in March of 2007. The sensors are suppose
[quoted text clipped - 31 lines]
>
> John Hermann