What is a cam sensor and can you drive a car with a faulty sensor?

Question

I bought a car off ebay and the seller has now told me a warning light has come on on the dashboard which he has been told is a fault with the cam sensor. I don't know whether to go ahead and still buy the car and whether it could make the 3 hour drive back home. Any advice would be appreciated.

Answer 1

your prob talking about a gm right? anyway yes you can drive with a faulty cam sensor it reads off a magnet that usually falls off on gm cars ie 3.8 motors but you can still drive it you will just have a warning light on

Answer 2

The cam sensor is a magnetic sensor that tells the computer on start up what position the cam is at in relation to the crankshaft. The computer uses this information to determine when to deliver fuel to the proper cylinders The fuel system on most modern fuel injection systems are synchronous so the deliver fuel only on the intake stroke of the proper cylinder. If the cam sensor becomes inoperative on most fuel system the computer will deliver fuel in a defaulted mode and the engine will still run but not as efficiently as it should. As to if the car will make a three hour trip. Probably but" life is a c**p shoot there are no guarantees ."

Answer 3

drive it only if you have return to home insurance cover...a cam sensor is a magnetic device that reads a gap in the cam pully and sends data to the cars brain[ecu]

Answer 4

Its a camshaft position sensor and some added features of you engine may be disabled. The camshaft is a rod with nibs on it to activate the valves. Without the cam sensor, variable valve timing will not work properly. Since most cars use this, it may damage your engine, such as valves not opening on time or staying open too long.....unless there is static valve timing backup provided by the engine computer.

It should still work...but may die unexpectedly....and may have trouble starting...

If the car has no backup, the engine will blow or melt the valves and requiring replacement of the affected valves. There should be a very LOUD knocking noise if a valve is melted off....The valve will still move, but it will not cover the cylinder during combustion thus making a loud noise during combustion.....and you will obviously be dumping fuel because there would be no compression on that valve.

Answer 5

If its a common rail diesel it tells the ecu which stroke the engine is on and if no pulse is present it wont start.If its a petrol they have constant injection above 2000 rpm and it is only used at low rpm to keep emissions low If it fails it will put eml on but it should get you home