See below.

This is correct, unless you're spending a grand each on the sensors and (as you said) calibrating them every few hours of runtime.

 

Wideband sensors are not manufactered or designed to be used as an input sensing device. They can not react fast enough to provide accurate feedback to the ECM. They are meant to be used as a "post" reading indicator to insure that the ECM has calculated the best air/fuel mixture. If the wideband sensors were so much more accurate, dont you think the OEM designers would put them in to start with? When the ECM is calculating the mixture required, it needs the narrow band sensors since they work in a narrow band, they are able to respond fast enough to provide the ECM with intelligent and accurate information. Go investigate Bosch website and read their disclaimers about the use of wideband O2 sensors.

 

Can you post the links to the info you are refering to. I checked out the bosch site and under wideband it clearly says "precise" and "accuracy". If the switching speed and accuracy are issues how do the many new auto tuning wide band sytems work, and how do they work to provied useful feedback on a dyno. Manufacturers rarely do what is "best" in favor of what is cheapest; wideband is not necessary to achieve the desired function of the OEM fuel management system, it wouldn't pass the common sense test to use a more expensive component with greater capability than you need. No doubt the narrow band sensor works better in the OEM system it was designed for. The Bosch site also says "The use of wideband A/F sensors in growing rapidly as original eqiupment in vehicles and in high performance specialty markets". For some reason I don't have a cut and paste function right now but the info I'm quoting comes from boschautoparts.com, under oxygen sensors on the left column.