What are you calling lean looking? clean white ceramis is not abnormal on OBD2 cars. To me lean is little silver spots on the ceramic.

Long before the engine runs that lean you will throw a check engine light for low O2 reading, I've gotten that from several malfunctions, loose egr nut, blown egr gasket, and from bad intake manifold gasket. All of these allow unmetered air to enter the engine, and can result in lean condition.

John C