At least I think so. We were working on my buddy's 2010 Suburban that had a bunch of codes, including P0011. We were trying to remove the camshaft sensor that is under the water pump on the front of the block. Well, we had a hard time with it and weren't too smart about it (don't ask) and most of the sensor housing ending up cracking off leaving us with nothing to pull it out by, so we did our best to very carefully drill it out/pull out pieces while praying nothing would fall inside the engine! We had screwed a wood screw into the middle of the piece of the sensor that was stuck inside, and were trying to pull on the screw head to get the broken sensor out. It worked pretty well, but when almost all of it was out, the head of the screw broke off inside the rest of the sensor. At this point we just continued to carefully work and pull out what was left and to drill it out. When we were almost done, the last small pieces of plastic fell down inside!! I'm not so worried about the plastic itself because I imagine it could easily shred and disintegrate. But it is pretty likely that there was still a piece of the screw in there, up to possibly an inch long. We did drill some of it out, so who knows maybe most or all of the screw was already drilled out, but I think it's pretty likely that some of it fell in.
I'm really nervous about this obviously. We started up the car, wincing and preparing for the worst. At first it seemed to run ok, or at least not any worse than before. The car still has the P0011 code (new sensor didn't fix it), it also has a P0420 for low catalyst efficiency which it had before, and it has P0300 for general misfire, which I'm not sure if it had before.
So even before all this drama we know there's an issue from before with the catalytic converter, seemingly, and my buddy has had very difficult acceleration to the point that he had to pull on to the shoulder of the highway because he couldn't drive anymore. So the car was definitely not driving well previously either. But although when we first turned it on after this incident it seemed to still drive "normal" meaning same as before, a few hours later he told me it seems worse, the engine is making noise even when the car is idling, and the acceleration issue is even worse.
I'm not sure if he had a misfire code (P0300) or not before all this drama, so I'm wondering if that could be a symptom of something falling into the engine or not? Would that cause a misfire? On the other hand, it seems like it's pretty common to have misfires come along with the P0011 code so it's probably not too crazy to assume he may have had it before also. And the "new symptoms" that are worse may just be the worsening of his existing issues, or it may be from our "accident." Hope some of you guys have some thoughts about this. Obviously if a piece of metal really did "fall in" and is "floating around" in there, his engine is in big trouble. But if it was true, would the engine have "self-destructed" immediately? Is the fact that that didn't happen proof that we're okay in terms of that? It's hard to know if we should move on with repairs to the catalytic converter and the cam issues if we're not sure about this new engine disaster. Thanks everyone!!!!
I'm really nervous about this obviously. We started up the car, wincing and preparing for the worst. At first it seemed to run ok, or at least not any worse than before. The car still has the P0011 code (new sensor didn't fix it), it also has a P0420 for low catalyst efficiency which it had before, and it has P0300 for general misfire, which I'm not sure if it had before.
So even before all this drama we know there's an issue from before with the catalytic converter, seemingly, and my buddy has had very difficult acceleration to the point that he had to pull on to the shoulder of the highway because he couldn't drive anymore. So the car was definitely not driving well previously either. But although when we first turned it on after this incident it seemed to still drive "normal" meaning same as before, a few hours later he told me it seems worse, the engine is making noise even when the car is idling, and the acceleration issue is even worse.
I'm not sure if he had a misfire code (P0300) or not before all this drama, so I'm wondering if that could be a symptom of something falling into the engine or not? Would that cause a misfire? On the other hand, it seems like it's pretty common to have misfires come along with the P0011 code so it's probably not too crazy to assume he may have had it before also. And the "new symptoms" that are worse may just be the worsening of his existing issues, or it may be from our "accident." Hope some of you guys have some thoughts about this. Obviously if a piece of metal really did "fall in" and is "floating around" in there, his engine is in big trouble. But if it was true, would the engine have "self-destructed" immediately? Is the fact that that didn't happen proof that we're okay in terms of that? It's hard to know if we should move on with repairs to the catalytic converter and the cam issues if we're not sure about this new engine disaster. Thanks everyone!!!!
