The sensor is not be dead according to the code. The heater circuit is the one that is supposedly faulty. Now that the CEL is off, we can assume either the fault occured due to logic calculations, which indicates there may be other issues, or there's some type of damaged wiring in the O2S.

The fact that the CEL came on means this issue occured more than once, and probably will happen again later on even if the light is off, but because the heater circuits primary function is reducing emissions by speeding up the process of getting the engine into closed loop operation, it really shouldn't have much effect on how the car runs at all. You can wait until the next time the CEL comes on, if that happens at all, to get the car properly diagnosed.

 

Thanks again for all the feedback and contrnutions (edit: contributions. Dang iPhone typist!) guys!!

For now I am penciling in that my car had (edit: has. =/ ) self-healing ability, it's an autobot!! j/k of course, I will continue to enjoy driving it and worry about it when/it the CEL comes back. I'll pull the code again at that time...

 

Update guys... my CEL came back on couple days ago. I read the code with my coworker's scangaugeII again and it is still the same code.

Since this malfunction is not on a critical component, and I am about another 3 weeks away from the next oil change, so I am going to keep driving (in the same manner as always before this CEL) and just to see if the light goes out again after another few hundred kms. I will keep reading the code regularly to make sure it's still the same one.

 

[QUOTE=i_s2k,Jun 12 2009, 11:00 PM]Update guys... my CEL came back on couple days ago.

 

Randomness: If you (or any other owner..) need access to an OBDII scanner, you're welcome to use mine (shoot me an email - k_stokes@@telus .net). It gives live sensor data while the car is running, and makes it a lot easier to find faults. Had a friend's '02 WRX telling me that atmospheric pressure was 12.1 PSIA the other day (should be 14.7)... heh heh.

 

Thanks for the offer, just couple months late for my CEL earlier

I did the "paper clip" trick then used my friend's ScanGaugeII to confirm the code

Which scanner do you have by the way? Just curious...

 

It's an ELM327-based USB scanner. Ridiculously useful, and it was cheap on eBay =)

 

Hmm... cool, just googled it up, USB hook up to PC for codes reading. It is cheap too!!

I might order one myself just to have handy thanks for the info.