o2 sensor light coming back (1 Viewer)

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Greetings My car's a 2002 Toyota 4Runner (sr5 I believe, or whichever is the cheapest model) with generally no problems. But my check engine light is on (which fails emissions testing), as are 2 other lights VSC TRAC and TRAC OFF. I pulled the diag code, which is P1135, which causes all 3 of those lights to come on. It's a fxxxed up o2 sensor "bank 1 sensor 1". This sensor apparently costs $250 at dealers, possibly $350 to fix. It's $180 at auto parts stores, and apparently like $95 on amazon. So I google enough to be comfortable knowing this is the right one (most informative page I've seen is this one: http://www.4runners.org/writeups/02sensor/index.html). I buy a haynes book, and confirm. I buy the part, denso 234-9002. (Denso is the manufacturer that makes oem parts for Toyota, so denso>* from what I read from all toyota hobby forums). Replace it. And ALL the lights go off. I'm feeling like a boss. Enjoy the rest of my weekend. Monday morning, I drive to work and the light comes on. WTF. So I take it to a tires plus where I know the manager and I tell him what happened. He looks it up in his system, confirms it's the exact same part he'd get (the denso 234-9002). He looks at the sensor I've replaced and it's the correct one. Resets it with his diag machine, and the lights go away. The lights come back on 15 minutes later, but he had to go work on some other stuff and I never got the full answer on what to look into next. So my question for mechanics on here. Is this scenario 1: The error code P1135 is for a bad sensor, specifically meaning it's a bad sensor, in which case, maybe I got a bad sensor or the "computer" is bad? or scenario 2: the sensor is going off because my air to fuel ratio is bad for some other reason: 1. big job like replacing catalytic converter? 2. maybe needing to replace air filter? I haven't done this in a while I think 3. ??? What should my next course of action be? By the way, while I will eventually just throw money at the problem, I'm looking to try to fix this myself if I can. Here are my current next 2 steps: 1. I was thinking of taking it to the Toyota dealership and asking them if it could just be the computer being wtf wrong. 2. From the hayne's book, it mentions checking the voltage on specific wires of the sensor and provides values, so I can take an ohm meter to this bitch. This is lower on the list of things to try because it would require finding a place to raise my car so I'm not under a super hot car while it's running. Thanks in advance.
 
Jeez.

Just a quick apology. I didn't know I had to manually format my post. Sorry if you got irritated reading my block of text.
 
Air filter is a start. Pull it out and look at it. If you can beat dirt out of it, it's too dirty.

Is it a V-6?
 
Yes, I believe it is.

I'll check out the air filter today, and probably take the multimeter to it next. I also got a replacement part from amazon, so I can rule out the sensor being faulty.
 
So I got my replacement part from Amazon. Went to go try it out and while pulling out the first one, it came apart from the harness connector really easily. I remember last time I had to use visegrips to clamp down this clip before pulling it out. So I pushed it back with a bit more force and heard a tiny click I might not have heard last time.

Drove around for 10 minutes and all was well. I'll drive it around some more tonight to test it, but this might have just been the case of a loose connector. Hope to take it and do all the inspection s*** tomorrow.

Thanks all.
 
That's great. I hope that it is that simple. I never get out that easily.
 
Sometimes that code can take 50+ miles to come back on. Good luck tracking it down if it comes back on. Our 4runner will have it come on and then it will randomly go off. If you can rule out the )2 and air filter check all wiring connections. Next options are bad cat converter or bad ECU.
 

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