GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

Please make me feel better. I just bought a 2006 Vibe Base. 22 miles on it. I drove it off the lot and a "Check Engine Light" came on. Sales guy told me to drive it a couple of days. He had just filled it up with gas and may have not put the cap on correctly. {My Jeep would do the same thing.. no worries} He checks the cap, I drive it and then after a week the light hasn't cleared. Back to dealer and they need to replace the Oxygen Sensor.. They are going to do Friday. Sales guy is going to come and get it and leave me a loaner. [Nice guys..]Questions - Is this common.. Did you have problems early on? Is this just bad luck?What exactly do these do? I know they have to do with emissions but can I damage the engine driving until this is fixed? Or do I just see a reduced mpg? (It has been on for about 2.5 weeks now. I have put another 200 miles on it..)Thanks for your help

welcome to genvibe.sucks to have trouble so early. O2 sensor failures on a brand new car are rare, let's hope it's a one time fluke and from now on you'll have no problems.Sales guys are sales guys, so you shouldn't take their opinion on something like a check engine light, that's for the service department, and they could have hooked up a tool and determined if it was a gas cap or something else. There are two oxygen sensors on the car. The first one is used by the engine control computer to monitor the fuel/air mixture, and if that one is not working right then the fuel mix might be too rich or too lean. The other sensor is downstream from the catalytic converter. The data from it is compared to the data from the first one, and the engine control computer uses this to determine if the catalytic converter is properly converting, as a way fo letting you know if your emissions are perhaps not quite right, but will not affect engine performance. On my car, after about 100K miles, the converter stops converting, and it was this second O2 sensor that threw a check engine light (CEL) to let me know.So, if the first one is bad, your engine performance will be not quite right, Assuming that you haven't been pushing the brand new engine to it's limits, it will probably be ok, but shoudl be fixed soon. If the second one is bad then not much really happens other than the CEL

If you are real worried see if they'll give you a different vibe. Tell them its BS to have a brand new car with a CEL. If its fixed and working and you trust the warranty...then keep it.

Welcome to the site! Sorry for your luck but this is not uncommon with any car. A guy on my team leased a 2003 PT Cruiser and within days the fuel pump relay failed and he needed a tow. The car was fixed and fine ever since. Just luck of the draw with parts I suppose.

Not all vehicles are 100 percent perfect. parts go bad. many parts are replaced in the repair stalls before vehicles leave the plant, sorry, but it is a fact of life. now on to your problem:if your check engine light comes on and stays on steady you have a problem but not a engine threatening problem, you can drive the vehicle but it is recommended to get the problem fixed as soon as possible. Joatmon explained it very well. so if I were you I wouldn't get to worried about it, and just chalk it up to "one of those things"on a good note, its nice to see that the dealer is going to come to you with a loner vehicle, most would want you to come to them.

Thanks for your answers. I made a note to ask the service guys which O2 sensor gets replaced just so I have it documented. [I am one of those people that keeps a Car "Baby Book" w/everything in it.]

Well they are obligated to document the repair and have to in order to claim it with GM warranty. You will get a copy of your repair visit.I work in service for Subaru but used to work in service for GM even before Vibe was around. Its not uncommon that a cel will appear on a brand new vehicle. The most common theme is a loose gas cap. Say your car was delivered with a full tank and the guy screwed it on crooked or left it loose. Its completely fine for a sales man to inform you that "might" be the cause of the cel. I would not hold it against your sales person for "miss leading" you. Every time I get a phone call about "my cel is on." I always ask "Did you just fuel up? And is your gas cap tight?"I've even seen cars driving down the road with their gas cap hanging down the fender from the open fuel door...But in my experience I have seen cel issues on new cars for non-gas cap related issues. No car new or otherwise is ever 100% perfect. Humans design and make these cars as well as the machines made to assist in assembly of the car... and we all know... man isn't perfect lol.

Quote, originally posted by northvibe »If you are real worried see if they'll give you a different vibe. Tell them its BS to have a brand new car with a CEL. If its fixed and working and you trust the warranty...then keep it.Like that is ever going to work!Except for Saturn - my son had a Vue with a defective manual tranny - they were going to fix it - he said "nope - 30 day guarantee - I want another one."

I don't see how demanding a new Vibe would help... you could be getting traded into one that could also break down like the one your currently in.