CEL came on, runs like garbage under load

Hi all,

So fired up the truck today and got a CEL. Just yesterday returned from a road trip of 600 miles, and was purring like a kitten. Plugged in the OBDii scanner and got p0333. Knock sensor.

Spent some time on TW, saw lots of issues with this. Was curious if code could have been an error or something (wishful thinking I guess), and it was idling great and drove around the block like normal, so I cleared the code to see if it would come back on, not really sure why. I was so mad and surprised the CEL was on. It's a 2012 with only 34k miles.

Anyhoo, the CEL turned off after clearing, and drove down to the gym. On the way home took it on the freeway and...blegghh. No power under load. Wouldn't really shift like normal. Pinged a little under heavy throttle. CEL didn't come back on though, which seemed strange.

This truck was FINE yesterday zooming along at 80 mph on the freeway. This truck is pristine, with no mechanical issues at all. WTF?

I'm leaving town tomorrow for a few days so can't get it into the shop to have it looked at until Monday, so my mind is sort of spinning.

Anybody here have a GOOD p0333 experience? As in, turned out it was nothing? Or at least, not $2k-plus for a new wiring harness?

 

I would try the obvious and replace the knock sensor.

$2k for a new harness........ Patience grasshopper

 

Thanks for that, patience would sure be nice right now. Well the knock sensor/sensor wiring harness is the $2k replacement. I’m just stressed because I can’t deal with this until next week. In the meantime my mind is full of worst case scenarios for a truck I’m still making payments on. Hoping for a positive anecdote!

 

You are stressing this too much. I seriously doubt that you will have dozens and dozens of bad wires to replace, unless they were chewed through or clipped, and yes the harness is real expensive if you let the stealer rip you off. There are alternatives to a $2k harness including a used one for much, much less. Also ToyMoCo has fix pieces that one can splice in place and can often be a DIY. I have done many. They even have a complete manual showing how to do this and list all the separate terminals by part number. A cheap DMM and the factory manual can almost always ferret out the problem.