After the Just Brakes scam, I decided to DIY on my car if it has problems. It didn’t take long before I had a chance.
My 2005 Honda CR-V LX 2WD had an engine light came on one day. I went over to the dealership close to my house the next morning. I was told that I would be charged $99 for diagnostic to find out why the light came on, and I would have to come back again since that day’s schedule was full. I was glad that he told me to come back; otherwise I would have to come up with my own reason to give him that I need to come back later. I don’t like they charge their customers like this. I remembered my co-worker told me that AutoZone offers free diagnostic on cars. After work I bought my car over to AutoZone, and the clerk gave me a printout of code P0135, which said it was O2 sensor’s error. I came back home and get online for some research. It took me a while. I spent quite a bit to time to see if my car is still under emission warranties. Finally, I downloaded my car’s Emission Warranty from Honda Owner Link website, and it confirmed with the information I got from two dealers’ service departments and America Honda – my car’s O2 sensor (A/F sensor) has 3 year/36K miles warranty only.
In the beginning I ordered the O2 sensor for $100 from The Parts Authority in Amazon. But it just wasted my time since the one they shipped me wasn’t a right one. Calling them back and found out that they don’t know which one is for my car. Finally they told me that they don’t have it. I ended up with paying both ways shipping for nothing. Finally I placed my order with Majestic Honda at www.hondaautomotiveparts.com. They have diagrams in their website for each part they are selling. It took about a week to get to me. I went to AutoZone to rent the O2 sensor socket, anti-seize and prepared to have a hard time to take off the original O2 sensor. I ended up taking less than one minute to take it off. Putting the new one on was very easy too. The engine light kept on in that day, but it went off in the next early morning. I felt pretty good about it. This is my first time doing maintenance on my car, and I am saving about $190 replacing it myself. Honda dealer was going to charge me $400 if I let them do it, plus $99 diagnostic.
