A failing camshaft position sensor begins losing its ability to quickly transfer data. Mismatched fuel delivery and ignition timing, even if off by a few milliseconds, will cause your vehicle to sputter, accelerate poorly, lack power, stall or even shut off.
Driving with a Bad Camshaft Position Sensor
Continuing to drive the car can lead to additional failures in other areas of your car, which can end up causing you to have a higher service bill. Your car can also stall when the sensor is failing. This can be dangerous to you, your passengers, and everyone on the road.
When the camshaft sensor fails, you may experience the car jerking while losing power or the car may struggle to move faster than ~35-40 mph. The engine may also stall intermittently, produce poor performance, hard starting, surging or fail to produce an ignition spark.
There are a range of reasons why your car is juddering when you accelerate. Your vehicle could have dirty fuel injectors, a damaged fuel pump, a blocked catalytic converter, a faulty mass airflow sensor, broken spark plugs, or even an accumulation of moisture.
So, if your car starts stuttering, there's a good chance there's an issue with your spark plugs (or the cables attached to them). It's not unusual for these car parts to wear out, and a faulty spark plug will cause your engine to misfire and jerk when you accelerate and for your engine to be much louder than usual.
A camshaft position sensor replacement is not an expensive job, if diagnosed properly. Some vehicles may have a lower cost, but expect a cost of between $200 and $400 for mainstream cars to replace the camshaft position sensor.
Error code P0340 indicates a malfunction with the camshaft position sensor A circuit. This type of malfunction can cause serious issues that require immediate repair because the underlying cause of the code could damage your vehicle's engine if you continue to drive it.
Before connecting, clean the sensor with a cleaning solution and let it dry. Connect the sensor's three wires to their original place. Reconnect the battery and restart the system. You have thoroughly disinfected the camshaft position sensor.
If your vehicle idles roughly, stalls frequently, has a drop in engine power, stumbles frequently, has reduced gas mileage, or accelerates slowly, these are all signs your camshaft position sensor could be failing.
The lifespan of a camshaft position sensor can vary, but typically they last around 100,000 to 150,000 miles.
The small but extremely important cam sensor can range from about $15 on some vehicles to several hundred dollars on others. Fortunately, it's often an easy part to change, and it will have your engine running well immediately after the repair.
If the oil level is very low, to the point where the engine overheats however, yes. Excessive heat can cause a camshaft position sensor to fail. More likely in a "low oil level" situation is for the camshaft, lifters, or camshaft variable timing actuator to fail due to inadequate oil pressure and lubrication.
A camshaft sensor is one of the essential parts of your vehicle, so much so that you probably won't be able to drive at all with a faulty one. Fortunately, the part is relatively inexpensive compared with a lot of other vehicle parts, and it only takes about an hour or so for a mechanic to replace it.
The failure is usually attributed to one (or more) of the following: insufficient lubrication, improper break-in, reusing old/worn components, mechanical interferences, and inferior hardware/hardware not torqued to spec. Always use the camshaft moly paste that is included with your flat tappet camshaft set.
While the number can vary based on the age of your car, a new car should have four camshaft sensors, one for each camshaft. A camshaft sensor determines the exact position of your engine's camshaft, helping your car keep your engine's combustion running smoothly.
The camshaft sensor enables the engine control to determine the exact position of the crankshaft drive. This information is required to calculate the ignition point and injection point, among other things.
One of the most common causes of jerky acceleration is a dirty fuel injector. Your fuel injectors are responsible for pushing fuel into your engine's cylinders. This means they control the timing and amount of fuel used to keep your engine running.
A sputtering engine may just mean you need to have your fuel filter replaced. All vehicles have a series of vacuum hoses that create the fuel pressure. If one of them leaks or is damaged in any way, you will lose significant fuel pressure. The vehicle's exhaust system can greatly impact the engine's performance.
One of the main reasons why your vehicle could be vibrating at idle could be due to worn out spark plugs. When a vehicle's spark plug is faulty, it can interfere with the air-fuel ratio leading to improperly firing cylinders, resulting in a misfire while idling. Replacing your spark plugs will solve this problem.