P2444: Secondary Air Injection System Pump Stuck On Bank 1
What to do
Worth attending to quickly rather than at the next service. Expect poor economy, a rough idle and possibly an audible pump running when it should be silent. Two things are being damaged meanwhile: the pump itself, which is built for about a minute of running per cold start and will burn out if held on, and the catalytic converter, because the extra air makes the sensors read lean and the engine is over-fuelled in response. Ask for the pump relay to be tested first — a relay with welded contacts holds the pump on regardless of what the module wants, and it is much the cheapest of the possible causes.
What this code means
The bank 1 secondary air pump is running when it should not be.
This does everything the stuck-open valve at P2440 does, and adds two problems of its own.
The shared consequence first: air pumped into the exhaust outside the cold-start window makes the oxygen sensors report a lean mixture that is not there, so the module over-fuels and the engine runs genuinely rich. The full argument is at P2440 and applies unchanged.
What is specific to the pump running is that the pump is not built for it. These are simple electric air pumps rated for a short burst — thirty to ninety seconds once per cold start, which over a day amounts to a couple of minutes of running. Asked to run continuously, one will overheat and destroy itself, usually within hours rather than weeks. So this code has a deadline of its own: the longer it stays unrepaired, the more likely the fault becomes a pump replacement as well.
And it draws current the whole time. On a vehicle left parked with the pump running, that is a flat battery; on a vehicle in use, it is a constant load the charging system was not asked to carry.
The cause is very often the relay rather than the pump or the module. A relay switching a heavy current in short bursts is exactly the duty that pits and eventually welds contacts, and a welded relay holds the pump on regardless of what the module commands. That is a cheap part, and it is worth testing before anything larger is considered — including before the module is suspected of commanding the pump wrongly.
Likely causes
Start here
- Faulty secondary air injection relay · easy
- Welded relay contacts · easy
Less common
- Wiring shorted to voltage · moderate
- Faulty secondary air switching valve · moderate
Rare
- Faulty engine control module · specialist
Symptoms
Components involved
Information, not instruction
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Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.
Community experience
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