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- May 14, 2011
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- Location
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I just spent the evening replacing a simple oil pressure sensor on Lisa's
2012 Charger R/T (5.7 hemi).
The equivalent job on our old rides is what, 5 minutes?
Well....on a 5.7 in a Charger, it's hours....and I mean hours.
It all started yesterday as we made our weekly rounds of shopping and errands.
The car suddenly displayed the check engine light, yet nothing seemed amiss in
operations - so I rolled through the message center and discovered it was suddenly
claiming the engine was seeing 99 PSI!
Yeah, uh, no....
So I do a little due dilligence online and discover that this is a fairly common issue
with not only this engine, this car, this MARQUE - but in most modern rides in general.
Quite the little cottage industry in selling $50 replacement sensors on the critters,
turns out.
Granted, the car has been perfect for 8 years and 80k miles now, but such a thing
still was a surprise...
Now, you'd think the thing would be located near the oil filter or on a primary oil
passage somewhere - and it is - but what you would NOT expect is how damn hard
they seemingly worked to HIDE the damn thing.
Up under the modular front accessory drive mount monster, shielded on one side by
the pulleys and water pump and such and crowded into invisibility by the alternator
on the other, if I hadn't done my research, I'd have never found the little rascal at all.
Unreal - and totally unnecessary.
Replacement becomes a topside AND downside affair subsequently - up top, to get
the belt out of the way and undo the top bolt on the alternator; underneath, the
requisite removal of all manner of belly pan and such to get at the lower two bolts
for same. BOTH bottom bolts nestled snugly up against frame rails and such to boot,
with no room for adult hands to access without shredding same into ribbons.
Once all that crap is finally undone - well, there that little bastard is.
I go ahead and snap off the plastic head of the thing with harness/connector still
attached, foregoing the usual wrasslin' match with red tabs and "hold yer jaw juuust
right" disconnect methods of THOSE little marvels of engineering...
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!
You'd think a decent deep socket would extract the core sensor, but nooooo.....
it takes a SPECIAL socket just for oil pressure sensors, which will prove to be a
tool you'll never find another use for in your life again - but you'll mistakenly
grab it at least once a job in the future, guaranteed.
But I prattle...
Net result is it took about the same time to swap the $%&^$%^ sensor as it
would have for me to REMOVE the 440 from Fred the GTX....
all for a silly little Hecho en Mexico oil pressure sensor.
Wife was out there for the after-testing of my work and she said "well, YOUR
car has one of those, too you know" in mock offense.
I popped the hood on the GTX, handed her a pair of channelocks and pointed
to the sending unit on the back of the 440 and said "be sure to unplug it first.
5 minutes, tops."
Anways - job got done, I froze my *** off on the concrete floor, car is fixed and
we saved the $300 shop rate plus markup.
Oh....and the car didn't fall on me this time, either.
2012 Charger R/T (5.7 hemi).
The equivalent job on our old rides is what, 5 minutes?
Well....on a 5.7 in a Charger, it's hours....and I mean hours.
It all started yesterday as we made our weekly rounds of shopping and errands.
The car suddenly displayed the check engine light, yet nothing seemed amiss in
operations - so I rolled through the message center and discovered it was suddenly
claiming the engine was seeing 99 PSI!
Yeah, uh, no....
So I do a little due dilligence online and discover that this is a fairly common issue
with not only this engine, this car, this MARQUE - but in most modern rides in general.
Quite the little cottage industry in selling $50 replacement sensors on the critters,
turns out.
Granted, the car has been perfect for 8 years and 80k miles now, but such a thing
still was a surprise...
Now, you'd think the thing would be located near the oil filter or on a primary oil
passage somewhere - and it is - but what you would NOT expect is how damn hard
they seemingly worked to HIDE the damn thing.
Up under the modular front accessory drive mount monster, shielded on one side by
the pulleys and water pump and such and crowded into invisibility by the alternator
on the other, if I hadn't done my research, I'd have never found the little rascal at all.
Unreal - and totally unnecessary.
Replacement becomes a topside AND downside affair subsequently - up top, to get
the belt out of the way and undo the top bolt on the alternator; underneath, the
requisite removal of all manner of belly pan and such to get at the lower two bolts
for same. BOTH bottom bolts nestled snugly up against frame rails and such to boot,
with no room for adult hands to access without shredding same into ribbons.
Once all that crap is finally undone - well, there that little bastard is.
I go ahead and snap off the plastic head of the thing with harness/connector still
attached, foregoing the usual wrasslin' match with red tabs and "hold yer jaw juuust
right" disconnect methods of THOSE little marvels of engineering...
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!
You'd think a decent deep socket would extract the core sensor, but nooooo.....
it takes a SPECIAL socket just for oil pressure sensors, which will prove to be a
tool you'll never find another use for in your life again - but you'll mistakenly
grab it at least once a job in the future, guaranteed.
But I prattle...
Net result is it took about the same time to swap the $%&^$%^ sensor as it
would have for me to REMOVE the 440 from Fred the GTX....
all for a silly little Hecho en Mexico oil pressure sensor.
Wife was out there for the after-testing of my work and she said "well, YOUR
car has one of those, too you know" in mock offense.
I popped the hood on the GTX, handed her a pair of channelocks and pointed
to the sending unit on the back of the 440 and said "be sure to unplug it first.
5 minutes, tops."
Anways - job got done, I froze my *** off on the concrete floor, car is fixed and
we saved the $300 shop rate plus markup.
Oh....and the car didn't fall on me this time, either.