2005 BF RTV Falcon ute

Have had the above CC fitted, OK for a few months then the light came on. Have done two long trips which switched it off for a few days. Have been told that doing a figure 8 wrap around the O2 sensor and exhaust pipe with high temp insulation wrap and then turning off the light by disconnecting the battery will permanently fix this problem. Theory is to increase the temperature of the 02 sensor

Has anyone done this with success?

Anthony71

By "CC" I take it you mean catalytic converter.

Your RTV has two oxygen sensors. the second one is used to check the efficiency of the Cat.

Manufacturers all do it slightly differently but the basic run down of the efficiency test is the engine is run rich until all the stored oxygen in the cat is used up, it is the run lean until the cat is saturated with oxygen again.

If the results of the test are out of range the light will come on. Basically the cat you have fitted is substandard and needs to be replaced by a more suitable unit.

Tried it but doesn't work, looks as though you were right. Any other ideas short of renewing the CC

Nothing you can do will trick the ECU into thinking it's working correctly

did you replace the gaskets between the head/upper and lower joins of the cat?
@ Holden we are having big issues with P0230 and P0240 (Cat efficience bank 1 and 2) - the fix is different with each car. Sometimes sensors, sometimes gaskets, sometimes Cats.

If you have access to a scantool go for a drive and monitor the outputs of both 02 sensors - the rear one should appear substainsially different to the front one. If it is the same, or similar = the cat is not working properly.
If it were my car i'd be replacing all 3 gaskets first and see what happens.

it's interesting how the mind of dealership mechanic works.

What do you mean by that?

What do you mean by that?

It means that if it was my car, I'd let you do the work under warranty, but I'd never pay you to replace gaskets for that issue.


It's no different to our local Mazda dealer who refuses to believe my fathers BT-50 has a leaking head gasket. They have spent a great deal of time and money replacing the EGR cooler, testing over and over, driving the car for Km and after Km.
Then blaming the coolant loss on the radiator cap and replacing that. Yet the engine still losses water and the cooling system continues to fail a pressurization test.

Our next step is used oil analysis to prove there is a coolant leak into a combustion chamber, some of the coolant will make it past the rings and will show up in testing.
Besides the fact you can smell coolant in the exhaust every morning and it has miss fire until it clears all the coolant from the camber.

It's interesting the way a dealership mechanics brain works.

I wrapped the O2 Sensor a few months ago, no difference. Surprising I disconnected the battery to turn the check engine light off while it went in for a scheduled service. Part of the service they replaced the spark plugs, not sure how old they were as the vehicle has done 203,000 of this I have done 20,000 since purchasing. Amazingly 200km after the service the light has stayed off. Usually comes straight back on.

Could old plugs have been the problem???