Ouch, that's a painful bill.

Nope, it was the BSI, had to get it replaced. (650€)

Now everything works fine👍

My road side emergency bargain basement odb2 reader wasn't showing any codes and trying to clear/reset did nothing.

Yea I'm with you. Though our newest car is 2016 - fortunately it doesn't have too much crap on it.

Recently had to pay someone for some work because I'm recovering from injuries and surgery. That offended me in so many ways. I don't like other people touchin' my stuff, haha.

Get a cheap $5 Bluetooth OBDII reader from Amazon, and the Torque app on your phone. I have one in every car, and give them. To friends and family.

Do NOT leave it in the OBDII connector, I've seen that cause spurious codes.

Easy to read and reset codes. At least then you can see what's going on right now without waiting for a shop.

This is why I'll never own a car newer than 1999 and why I do all my own work.

That's fair. I was kind of hoping the second garage wasn't going to find anything and it was indeed the waste gate shitting bed like a normal VW.

If you have that much history with the garage owners, yes I would tell them. Maybe not ask for compensation because the issue is gone now, but If it is a new guy working for them and he is either fucking up or intentionally fucking with parts they should be aware in case a pattern arises.

Since COVID we noticed professional car tech fees jumped significantly, here. Let's hope its something super simple 🙏

That's what I fear too, a BSI replacement done by a professional doesn't sound cheap to me also 😭

The blinker speed changing, even with good bulbs, suggests to me that:

the unit that controls the blink is faulty or has moisture in it, or you have an intermittent ground short that is letting the circuit over draw current.

Hope they sort it out for you. Intermittent electrical issues suck.

Unfortunately no, I have a mechanic appointment planned in the next weeks. I'll be sure to update tho as I've seen this problem on other forums with no solutions.

Did you get it sorted out?

It's "safe" aka not likely to wear anything out faster, since most vehicle hvac components run at a steady state no matter the input load, but you will likely see significantly reduced performance. Vehicle HVAC is always fighting a losing battle against a barely-insulated tin can that is about 50% thermally transparent glass. Any slight reduction in airflow is going to make it less comfortable and likely way worse at maintaining any in-cabin set temp.

I guess worst case, reduced airflow over the A/C evaporator could cause the compressor clutch to cycle on and off more frequently when running A/C.

Vehicles specced with HEPA filters from OEM usually have significantly larger filter area, to compensate for how restrictive the media is. If the OE filter isn't a HEPA I would not put one or any other super special "high efficiency" filter in.

Shadetree guy here, so you know take with grains of salt.

Is it unsafe? Nah. You might add additional wear on things like the cabin fan and depending on the age of your vehicle you might have a resistor block to control fan speeds, if you reduce airflow it could get hotter and fail faster.

But first off you probably are not adding an additional HEPA filter to the existing cabin filter, so the increase in airflow resistance probably isn't all that much especially since some people let that filter sit there until it is nearly plugged and the systems can survive that too.

Seems like it’s the exact same problem of installing an overly restrictive filter on your home’s HVAC return vent.

Well except the house has way more airflow and it might throw off the air balance for the building. Your car A/C and cabin fan will be fine.

It depends.

Before and after cat can have different reporting requirements depending on the system.

I'd look into the EFI system that vehicle uses to know more specifically.

You'd probably do better on a forum for that specific car - those folks tend to know really crazy specifics.

Yes and no. Most Oxygen sensors are basicly the same with various lengths of wire and connectors. That goes for upstream (helping adjust air/fuel mix) and downstream (monitor catilyst)

Whats gonna get you is the Air/Fuel ratior sensors the newer cars are using upstream. These actually send an opposite signal from a traditional O2 sensor and isn't cross compatible.

Funny thing, I moved from the automotive world into industrial burners and discovered even those big burners are using pretty much the same O2 sensor you find under your car's hood.

Thank you, I didn't know that, I thought you where supposed to check with the various iron nuts bolted on.

That will make life easier.

The waterproofing schmoo makes me think it's factory. If you're getting 0v at the rear connector there's a break in the line somewhere. You'll have to measure voltage along the wire to see where it drops. You can test the ground by checking for continuity between the negative connector and the body/frame.

Looks like a gm factory splice of the 80-00 vintage. If one wire goes in and more than one comes out it is a factory splice with a naked terminal.

If it's melty looking you probably have a short downstream from there towards the signal connector.

I removed the tape and it's not a resistor, it's some kind of shielding...

Don't really know where to go next🤔

How would one go about to find a voltage drop (if that is even what it's called)

I disagree and you're the reason

I don't think someone would bother with the tape so my gut says it's factory. What happens if you measure the resistance over that resistor?

Thanks! I’ll have to get a long screwdriver. I only have a long piece of metal and it does t transmits sound but I can feel the vibrations are stronger on the alternator.

It’s an old alternator anyways (20+ years, 100k+ miles) so I’ll replace it and hopefully that’ll do the trick.

Probably.

An old shade tree mechanic testing tool is a long screwdriver - press it to a spot on the alternator and rest your head on it just near your ear - it makes a great stethescope.

If it's the alternator bearing, it'll very slowly get worse, you'll have plenty of time before it fails.

Honesty I've never seen an alternator bearing fail before the voltage regulator - that's the weakest link. But hey, take what you get, right?