Hi Scotty,

I have a 2002 Lexus ES300 (my father was the original owner) identical to the one that your wife drives and you talk about all the time on your videos. It has 140,000 miles. It is a great beater car for my kids and mechanically (but not cosmetically) is in great shape. A few months back, the check engine light came on and my code reader gave P1130 and P1135 which I believe is the O2 sensor between the engine and the firewall. I bought the OEM Denso part and brought it to a great old school exhaust shop I have been going to for years. The location of the sensor is very difficult to get to and the tech that worked on the car was unable to get the old sensor out even with lube and a blow torch. He told me (and showed me) that he was afraid if he put too much torque on the O2 sensor, it would strip the threads (and he didn't have room to retap new threads) and/or damage the CAT manifold which would turn into an expensive mess for a car that is probably only worth $3k or so. I live in MA and emissions are not required for inspections on cars that are over 15 year old, but I don't like having the check engine light on all the time because I won't know if there is a more serious other problem that crops up, especially since my kids are the ones driving the car. Is there a way to "trick out" the sensor so the O2 sensor doesn't get flagged? Is there some other solution for this? I understand the fuel economy might be adversely impacted by this, but I'm not ready to get rid of what otherwise is a phenomenal car. Absent any other solution, I'm thinking that I will just leave the code reader in the car and tell the kids to check it each time they put gas. Many thanks for your advice and your great videos!

Thanks!

Jon