What are Automotive Oxygen Sensors and how do they work?
A This info courtesy of BOSCH, the company that invented the automotive oxygen sensor: About the size of the average spark plug, an oxygen sensor measures oxygen levels in the exhaust. The sensor reads the difference between the makeup of the exhaust gases passing by them and the reference air trapped in the sensor body. Then the sensor sends electronic messages to the vehicle’s engine management system, telling it if the vehicle is running rich too much fuel or lean too little fuel. This allows the engine management system to make appropriate adjustments. Internal combustion engines operate on a mixture of air and gasoline, the ideal mixture is stoichiometric: 14.7 to 1 (14.7 parts of air with 1 part of gasoline). At this ratio, the engine is most efficient, and the catalytic converter also operates most efficiently, reducing harmful exhaust pollutants. The oxygen sensors job then is to make sure the engine management system feeds the right mixture of air & gasoline to the engine to o
