Camshaft Position Sensor - Car Won't Start, 2004 Suzuki Forenza

A while back I was diagnosing an issue on my 2004 Suzuki Forenza and pulled code P0342, part of what was causing my check engine light to turn on. In short, I ended up ignoring the code because it wasn’t what I was looking for at the time, and my car was running a little rough, but otherwise fine. Now about a week ago my car will turn over, but will not stay running for more than a half second. Lo and behold, the camshaft position sensor finally gave, and my car stuck at my job’s\u00a0parking lot. A big lesson learned, here.

I will cut right to the chase, because I already found a great post on this topic that sums up how to replace this sensor. You can find it here.

If you follow his instructions, you should be able to replace the sensor and get your car running again. However, there are a couple of issues I ran into that I want to mention in case anyone else runs into the same issues.

My engine mount would not come off, for any amount of effort I used to pull it loose. After removing the four nuts on top, I finally got it loose enough to yank off by raising and lowering the jack I used to support the engine. That did the trick.

The plate between the mount and the timing cover pulls up and off - you do NOT need to remove the timing cover at all. This would have saved a lot of trouble if I had known beforehand. You don’t need to remove the serpentine or the timing cover because what you need is only to remove that plate. Unscrew that bolt and pull up on it to remove it.

The star-shaped socket is extremely difficult to get to. What you need is a very short, thin socket wrench to get to it, because you really only have a maximum of about 2.5 inches between that screw and the part that sticks up to hold the metal plate cover in place. Have this ready before you get started, or you will end up having to stop and go to the store to buy something that fits in the middle of your project. See the image in the post I referenced above to get a better idea.