2010 Aveo5 CEL P0053

[Jiggs]

Have had this car about 6 months, 58,000km or about 34,000 miles on it. CEL came on after oil change, immediately after. Mechanic who also owns a 2007 Aveo did testing...vacuum leaks, exhaust leaks, checked wiring etc all good & confirmed upstream o2 sensor needed replacing. We tried two aftermarket sensors that crapped out after the 3rd cold start. Now trying a GM OE sensor....which is more than double the cost.

Mechanic was told by GM service that these cars can be pretty temperamental when it comes to aftermarket replacement sensors as even a very slight change in resistance will trip the CEL.

Guess we'll find out. Not too sure what we'll do next if it trips again. Anyone else have this particular issue that was solved by using an OE sensor?

[Jiggs]

Well Jiggs I came across a thread on another forum with a similar posting. The advice there was to stay away from the Universal or Aftermarket Sensors as they were problematic for many Aveo owners.

Like one of the posters said there's a reason they are 2 or 3x as much for GM sensors. There are some things you can cheap out on when it comes to repairs but this isn't one of them.

Good luck!

[Jiggs]

Thanks.

Its been in for 14 hours so far with 4 cold starts under our belts {and its cold here} so far so good.

Fingers crossed.

[Jiggs]

Well 24 hrs, 30 miles, and about 8 cold start up cycles later and still NO CEL. Quite possibly these things are not unlike a finely tuned Porsche and require genuine OE parts.

Note to self, don't screw around with aftermarket equipment when it comes to the brains of these cars. You'll waste time, money and it'll drive you nuts. I can see how this could be an expensive little commuter car.

[JB_Fraser]

Thanks for posting an update!
I recall a similar post, same part numbers for the sensors but one was made in China (didn’t work) and one made in North America (worked)., guess they are pretty sensitive.

Cheers

[Jiggs]

What I don't understand, and I really haven't seen an explanation for it, is why do these cars burn thru their initial sensors so quick. There is no way that a car with 58,000 km should be having sensor failures at this mileage regardless of age. Sure some sensors do "fail" early but this appears to be an epidemic for Aveos judging by the 100's of posts and complaints across the web. I've owned many cars over the years and can't ever recall replacing sensors in any of them.

I'm wondering if perhaps cheaper production methods/materials were used to help bring down the costs of the car. If you save a dollar here a quarter there on the number of components in a car that number could be very significant, and we do know that it does have many components that fail or wear prematurely when compared with other makes.

Just for another example I inspected my various hose clamps after reading about cooling system failures due to hoses suddenly blowing off. I found that almost all of them were rusted almost to the point of powder. Again in all of my years of car ownership I can't recall ever replacing a simple hose clamp! On this one I've replaced all of them. I'm not sure what they used but it sure as heck wasn't stainless steel!