I'm planing to replace the front sensor on my 96 850 tomorrow.When I bought the 02s from the dealer the parts guy told me that I have to splice the wire to connect the new sensor. Is this true? I don't want to mess up the new sensor since it is quite expensive.Pls. help. Thanks.

You will have to splice wires if you have a "universal" fit sensor. Look at what you have. A "direct fit" sensor will be complete wiring harness with a plugin connector on one end. A "universal" sensor will just have four wires (1 black, 2 white and one gray) and you should have a splice kit also. This is usually a square plastic box deal with water proof washers and 4 twist on "bullet" wire splices that you use to join your wires together from the new sensor to the old plug. . Just remove the old sensor from the pipe and disconnect its connector up in the engine bay so you can take it in the house and work on the kitchen table. The splice kit is easy to use, just make certain you connect the correct wire ends together (black to black etc) If you don't have a splice kit, your;re sorta stuck soldering the individual wires together and covering the splices with shrink tubing or (not the best way) using crimp on connectors. Take your time and you'll do fine.

bl

make sure they're not charging the price of an oem sensor!!! the'yre putting on a cheaper universal which is about 39.00 instead of over 100 like 118 i think

Yea, Steve is right. There should be quite a price difference between an OEM sensor and a universal. You can go to discountsensors.com and compair the prices. You'll see about $30-50. difference between OEM, direct fit vs universal type sensors. ALso, you may want to check Bay 13 as they have photos and nstructions. The sensor plugins can be sorta a pain to get loose as there're in a hard to reach location.

bl