Have these been redesigned lately? I took my new (to me) 2001 STS in for a SES light and intermittent power drop and it turns out these bad boys are the ones at fault. Additionally they had already been replaced once in the past on this particular car.

Problem is. They seem to be such an issue my tech claims they are on national backorder! I know sometimes if you just go to another dealer they will have the supposed backordered parts in stock.

Finally, what damage am I doing to the vehicle by driving it around this way? The dealer simply handed it back to me til the part comes in and said I could just drive it around with the minor issues if I wanted to. Dont the crank position sensors assist the engine computer with determining timing? Would a timing problem hurt the engine? Other than an occasional hard start which would impact the starters longevity of course, am I doing any harm?

Thx.

When the CPS isnt working properly, it goes into failsafe mode and it will run without harming the engine.... Basically its a preset value that the computer is programmed with from the factory..... Youll get bad gas mileage, and maybe some other things, but Id say it would be safe to drive it if you HAD to......

Ahh, very good info, Youre right gas mileage hasnt been great and there is a slightly louder engine sound right now which may or may not be attributed to the CPS. Hopefully these will be in soon.