Originally Posted by Or
Quote
What's the "spark plug fouler-spacer trick"?
Take a spark plug non-fouler (on rack at auto parts stores). Drill out the thin metal baffle on the cylinder end. You put it in-line between your 02 sensor and it's normal mounting hole. Pulling the sensor back out of the direct flow will "trick" it enough to defeat the CEL. It works, you can google it.
You said above you had run VPB Restore? How long, etc. and did it do anything at all? The full-ester oil, correct?
OK, thanks for these tips, Oro & Java.
Yes, I ran the VPB Restore nearly 2yrs/35k miles ago—the $70/gallon ester stuff for Cummins engines, not just the Premium Blue 5w-40 HDEO. Ran it for only one 5K OCI (about 4 months), but I didn't buy a second gallon of it for top-off, and the car's oil consumption rate was about 1200mi/quart, so it was fairly "diluted" by the PUP 5w-30 I was topping off with. So I may not have given the Restore a laboratory-adequate test, but my anecdotal data point is that it made little or no difference in my car's oil consumption rate. With my car's mileage and age, its oil consumption may be due to honest ring and/or valve guide wear, or fried valve stem seals, rather than the ring coking/piston oil return hole issues that plagued the ‘07 & later 2AZ-FEs—but I'm no expert.