Hi All,
Please do not get mad at me posting these questions. I know that I am new and probably dumb when it comes to these trucks, but I did a lot of thread searching and reading and still do not know what I should do.
My situation is this... I bought a 1996 LX450 with 128k about a month ago. Truck looked great, clean and drove very well. The PO bought it off a friend at 117k and only put on about 10k in the last 2 years, so it was sitting a bunch. Most service was Lexus documented with 30k, 60k, and 90k service performed.
So, I got the truck and did the 120k service, changing out all the oils, liquids, diff fluid, coolant flush, brake fluid flush, belts and hoses replaced, etc. The truck was driving better than ever.
Then, about a week ago I got a check engine light. Took it to a mechanic that I really trust and he said that the front O2 sensor went bad. He replaced it with after market (high quality Denso as he said they were OE). Got the truck back and it seemed to drive fine but the exhaust was very smoky when I was warming it up in the morning.. but hey, its cold outside in jersey. So, I drove it for a couple of days and got lean emission code, cleared it and took it to the mechanic who said that O2 sensors are running correctly and it was probably still my system adjusting....
A couple of days later got the dreaded catalytic converter code... the generic 0402 or whatever. So, I took it back to the shop and the mechanic said that the O2 sensors are working fine, but if you rev the engine to very high RPMS the readings sometimes are equal, indicating that the catalytic converter may be going bad...
So, my question is... can the back O2 sensor be causing all these problems? The check engine light seems to go on only after the truck has been driven for a while and its at the end of an hour long trip. Or is it because the front O2 was replaced with non OEM? Or, is the catalytic converter really going bad? I know this is probably hard to answer, but I really have limited funds so I want to make the right decision. The mechanic said that I can probably get away with replacing only 1 of the 2 catalytic converters to get the readings up to par and stop the code from coming back. Also, my wife freaks out whenever the check engine light comes on, and doesn't want to drive the truck anymore. It is running fine accept for the heavy exhaust smoke at warmup. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated!
Please do not get mad at me posting these questions. I know that I am new and probably dumb when it comes to these trucks, but I did a lot of thread searching and reading and still do not know what I should do.
My situation is this... I bought a 1996 LX450 with 128k about a month ago. Truck looked great, clean and drove very well. The PO bought it off a friend at 117k and only put on about 10k in the last 2 years, so it was sitting a bunch. Most service was Lexus documented with 30k, 60k, and 90k service performed.
So, I got the truck and did the 120k service, changing out all the oils, liquids, diff fluid, coolant flush, brake fluid flush, belts and hoses replaced, etc. The truck was driving better than ever.
Then, about a week ago I got a check engine light. Took it to a mechanic that I really trust and he said that the front O2 sensor went bad. He replaced it with after market (high quality Denso as he said they were OE). Got the truck back and it seemed to drive fine but the exhaust was very smoky when I was warming it up in the morning.. but hey, its cold outside in jersey. So, I drove it for a couple of days and got lean emission code, cleared it and took it to the mechanic who said that O2 sensors are running correctly and it was probably still my system adjusting....
A couple of days later got the dreaded catalytic converter code... the generic 0402 or whatever. So, I took it back to the shop and the mechanic said that the O2 sensors are working fine, but if you rev the engine to very high RPMS the readings sometimes are equal, indicating that the catalytic converter may be going bad...
So, my question is... can the back O2 sensor be causing all these problems? The check engine light seems to go on only after the truck has been driven for a while and its at the end of an hour long trip. Or is it because the front O2 was replaced with non OEM? Or, is the catalytic converter really going bad? I know this is probably hard to answer, but I really have limited funds so I want to make the right decision. The mechanic said that I can probably get away with replacing only 1 of the 2 catalytic converters to get the readings up to par and stop the code from coming back. Also, my wife freaks out whenever the check engine light comes on, and doesn't want to drive the truck anymore. It is running fine accept for the heavy exhaust smoke at warmup. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated!