My son is looking at a wrecked 1998 Accord 4-cyl. Auto trans 155,000 miles. It has damage to the hood, bumper, right headlight. Airbag did not deploy.

The SEL light was on and had several codes. We cleared the the code and the SEL light came on immediately before we even had the chance to start the engine and drive it around.
It is P0141 O2 heater sensor. I am suspecting we can replace the sensor and we might be OK. If it was the CAT, I would think the SEL would come on after 5-10 minutes.
Engine runs fine and trans shifts fine.

What do you guys think? If the SEL comes on that quick, the sensor or wire to the O2 sensor might be bad?

 

P0141 is the secondary O2 sensor heater - that's the one in the cat, not the one in the manifold.

That error simply means the heater (built into the sensor) isn't working. But it can be a bad wiring connection or a blown heater element.

Unplug that rear O2 sensor wire. The sensor end of the wire has 4 wires, with 2 of them being the same color (black?). Take a multimeter & measure the resistance between those 2 wires. I think it should be 10 to 40 ohms, but usually a failed heater will read open-circuit (infinity or overload or whatever your meter does).

If the senor heater is OK, then it's wiring. Corroded or loose connections in the plug for that sensor? I think that sensor-heater shares a fuse with a few other things, so if the fuse is blown you'll have other stuff going on.

The best place to find a broken wire is under the car, where that wire might get hit by road debris or something.

 

Will give this a try if my son buys the car. Thanks!

 

Thanks for the advice... Son bought the car and first thing I checked.... Black to Black was Open.
Bought new Bosch O2 from Rockauto...$23.

 

Before everyone starts bashing Bosch, here goes...

OEM for the sensors is Denso. I've had a couple VWs & Saabs, so Bosch was a good name to me.

On a 95 Integra I used a Bosch O2 sensor and didn't have any problem.
Few years later, I bought another Bosch O2 sensor and inside the Bosch box was a Denso sensor.

Another couple years later, I see people posting about Bosch sensors not working properly in Hondas. So who really knows? Besides, if it gets flaky you can be suspicious of a bad sensor and it was only $23...

 

Exactly. Bosch used to make very high quality parts, but has been seeking out 3rd world countries so quality has been slipping some. I use Bosch parts in my VW, and NGK or Denso in my Honda or Toyota. And just so everyone knows, Toyota owns Denso.

 

Replaced O2 sensor (on the CAT).. works fine now! Thanks!

 

Great. Thanks for letting us know.