What is the difference between a $30 O2 sensor where I have to reuse the old wiring and crimp it on and a $120 sensor complete with new wires?

as long as the old wires are intact wouldn’t they both do the same job?

 

Your sorta answering your own question?

Beyond that unless you give more information about what brand and who is selling them it is hard for anyone to make any kind of accurate judgement or recommendation of a choice you are looking at?

I do find it interesting that there is that much a variance in price unless you are mistakenly looking at 02 sensors vs H02 sensors. You also have NOT listed the year of your MAZDA? Guessing using the first year MX5 1989 and then a 2019 model I find $33-41 RockAuto for 02 sensors and up $181 for H02 sensors for new model MX5 in general. I did not look at details for location of sensors or brand names, just a quick look up reference.


We use generic sensors and also name brand in the shop depending on the customers preference. The generic and plain box sensors tend to be a little 50/50 finicky . If they work right off then they are good to go for a full service life. If they pop a DTC right off then we pull them and exchange them out. If a second one does the same thing we up grade the brand . Sometimes the ECU can be sensitive to what parts are used for registering information? I realize this makes NO SENCE the ECU should only receive information from a sensor designed for a set of output information and there is no reason why they should , but they do? Maybe some just like quality manufactured parts, idk? lol

 

My car is a 2001, 6 speed with the wood Nardi trim.

 

Then I recomend
Rock Auto = WALKER PRODUCTS 25024641 OEM Based Sensor Info
Downstream; Bank 1 Sensor 2 $77.79

Auto Zone in your town Cleveland Ohio

Walker Exact Fit Oxygen Sensor 350-34557

• Part #350-34557
• SKU #924750

Universal information not necessarily completely empirical
There are several on amazon and eBay generic manufactures? I don't as a rule recomend having to do with anything [size=13px]generic[/size] brands unless I can trace who the actual manufacture of the product is! Read what I said about them in the last response. MAKE SURE you are getting a listed DOWN STREAM and the listing indicates YOUR exact year and model MAZDA. CHECK your production date in the drivers door jam. If it is in the 7th month or newer i.e 7/2001 then you have a production year 2002.

I would NOT recomend a wire yourself model HO2 or O2 sensor to anyone!


The H = Heat/Heated oxygen sensor which is very important to get this correct when shopping for Oxygen sensors. HO2 are multiple wires 4-6 wires while a O2 sensor is 1 or 2 wire leads. GENERALLY!

 

I just came across this one literally minutes before I saw you had posted. I swear it wasn’t there yesterday.

I usually start at Autozone because it’s a quick and dirty way to see how much they’re going to try and rip me off in the name of convenience. But I have to admit this is a good price and the one I’m going to go with.

The price difference isn’t enough to warrant docking around with a DIY universal sensor.

Thank you for your advice.

 

The link you sent and the one I saw at Autozone is an upstream. The downstream is $120.

I’ve heard good things about the Denso and that’s a little cheaper.

 

I never actually retailed DENSO products mostly because my distributors offered other brands like NGK, AC, Bosch etc... but,
Yes DENSO products have a good reputation and quality. As far as I am aware most all DENSO products are still manufactured in Japan.

The thing with any electrical component general rule is that it will either work as designed in the first 8 hours of its life and then for its designed service life or fail in that first 8 hours no matter who or where it is manufactured.