P0106, Opinions?

[Skid542]

First off, my appologizes if this has been beaten to death. I did some searching and haven't found a similar senario to what I am experiencing.

 

On my 96' OBW, 5spd, I am occasionally getting a P0106 code being thrown but only on occasion.

 

The trend I have noticed is this - I am driving for a couple of hours on a long road trip, pull over for gas, fill up, hit the road again (highway 55-70 mph depending as I've been driving in MT) and after about 5-10 minutes the code comes up. No issues the car running, i.e. no sudden missing, stumbling, etc. This has happened several times to me. So I just keep on cruising with the cruise control set and reach into my glove compartment and pull out my reader. I pull the code to make sure it's nothing critical, and get P0106 everytime. Continueing to cruise at speed I go ahead and clear the code. It stays gone until I get gas again or I get home. It doesn't happen everytime but isfairly consistent. On rare occasion I have an issue where it throws it running around town.

 

Normally I wouldn't really sweet it much as it hasn't stopped the car. But my folks are coming out in a few weeks to visit and will be borrowing the OBW for a road trip from Northern Idaho to Glacier Natl. Park. I don't want this to happen to them and freak them out, or worse, have it take a real crap and leave them stranded.

 

They have offered to pay for any new sensors it may need as a 'rental' fee. I haven't done much, any, diagnostics on the system as I've been busy working on my 93' Legacy turbo.

 

So before I dig into everything or start buying sensors, I thought I'd ask the experts over here what their opinions were on the situation.

 

FWIW, most of the time it was doing this to me I was in a high altitude enviroment, 4000' ASL though around town I'm around 2200' ASL.

 

Any insight you guys can give would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thank you,

 

Lee

[OB99W]

The definition for code P0106 is "Pressure sensor circuit range/performance problem". It's one of the many codes that doesn't point to a specific defective part. The barometric pressure sensor itself might be bad, but there could be problems with electrical connections to it or the pressure sources switching solenoid valve (however, given the conditions under which the code comes up, it's probably not electrically-related). Also, there could be clogged or cracked vacuum hoses connecting the same parts, or the inline filter might be clogged.