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i have a 2005 Dodge Stratus with the 2.7L V6 Engine, recently i’d noted a slow loss of performance.. then the Check Engine light came on… P0430 Bank 2.. so i went to the local exhaust shop and he said it was the Catalytic converter had begun to break down and was plugged, odd on a car with 110 thousand miles but ok… it’s 10 years old so.. anyway i can’t afford 1200 to have the duel Catalytics replaced so he gives the option of “cleaning” it out..and while he was at it he removed the cracked resonator and put in a straight pipe, (a bit loud but not annoyingly so) however.. there is a lot of what he called “pipe rattle” which is Extremely annoying. .. other than forking out over 1200 to have the cats replaced and a new resonator installed.. what can i do to stop this “pipe rattle” and if any one knows any website that has catalytic converters dirt cheap.. please let me know.. thanks guys/gals :S
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I would go to another exhaust shop. “Cleaning” a catalytic converter rarely, if ever, works. A P0430 code can also be caused by a faulty post-cat O2 sensor or an exhaust leak. If you had a cracked resonator then you definitely had an exhaust leak, and that was most likely the cause of the code, especially if the code disappeared after the resonator was replaced with the pipe. “Cleaning” isn’t going to “un-break” a breaking-down converter, and most times won’t even unstop one. To put it bluntly, I call BS on that shop.
Here’s Eric’s experiences cleaning a cat:
let me clarify what i mean by him cleaning… he removed the internals of the converter with a large chisel and hammer… and i’d had the crack in the resonator since i got the car… this is the type of converters my car uses Auto Parts Warehouse Catalytic Converter (which is still too high for me to afford to replace) i’m not so worried about the codes since there is no internals (which was full of carbon by the way as he shows me some blocks that was caked in carbon) what i really want to stop is that rattling sound when the engine hits certain harmonics it’s ear shattering and teeth rattling… and i live in a very “thick” community, there is maybe 20 Feet between houses. and when i come in from work.. (or leave for work) rolling along at 10 to 15 mph the engine is in low RPM and the sound is.. WOW. i eventually will put new cats on there and either a muffler or resonator. however finding a temporary way of stopping that sound until i can save up the cash would be nice.. btw thanks cap269 for replying
Pipe or exhaust rattle is usually caused by a bad or disconnected exhaust hanger or a loose baffle in a muffler. The hollowed out cats wouldn’t make a large difference in the sound. The increased noise you are hearing is probably caused by not having the resonator installed and can’t be corrected until it is replaced. It isn’t just a muffler, it has a purpose or it wouldn’t have been there. The exhaust noise passes through the resonating chamber, which creates an “exhaust note” that tunes the sound to cause destructive interference in order to be canceled out by the opposing sound waves.
I’m still not convinced that your cats needed to be chiseled out and call BS on that shop. There will be carbon in any cats that have mileage. I expect there would have been some significant idling issues, stalling due to backpressure, and probably other P04xx codes (usually P0432) and P1197 set if the cats were plugged up. Restrictions and efficiency are not the same thing. A plugged up cat will not usually set an efficiency code, and a cat with full flow usually set the efficiency codes. Not only that, but if both cats were bad, there should have been codes for both banks. P0430 is only indicated for bank 2. P0420 (and possibly P0422) should have set for bank one. That brings the next point. If your cats were that bad at 110k miles, something is very wrong with your engine, and if it isn’t corrected, it will kill the new cats when you get them, unless there were previous issues that are now repaired. I own an ’88 Toyota with 306k and OE cat. I own a ’96 Jeep with almost 250k on it and the OE cat. I own an ’05 Hyundai with 172k and OE cat. Cats don’t just break they have to be damaged. If there’s nothing wrong with your engine, there was probably nothing wrong with your cats. Too late now, since they’ve been hollowed out, but I would have immediately gotten a second opinion before letting the shop chisel out the converters. There are non-destructive ways of testing converters. All auto parts need to be tested before being condemned.
that is exactly what i thought… at 110K how could a cat go bad.. it’s kinda unheard of with how things are built now… however the deed is done and can’t be reversed without a lot of green. i will look into a possible broken hanger.. as for the resonator. i can deal with “that” noise.. it kinda sounds like blowing through the center of a roll of towels. but isn’t annoying.. (much lol) i think my best choice now… would be to save up the money and have the car tested at the dodge dealership. as they know more about the car then off the road shops.. though on a secondary note.. since he removed the guts from that cat my power has returned. though stinky acceleration is back to how it was a few months ago. but after the cat was cleaned out a mutable misfire code did show up.. i am going to get new plugs and air filter installed on my next oil change which will be in about 2 weeks (since this type of engine has a history of plugging it’s oil ports if it builds sludge up in it.) Cap269, you have my thanks. and once i figure out how to do that “thank you ” link thing i’ll do it :woohoo:
You’re welcome, Can cats go bad on vehicles with 110k? Sure, but there has to be an underlying reason. Constantly running rich or burning oil are a couple of reasons among others. On modern OBDII cars and trucks, the computer sets codes and check engine lights to prevent this kind of damage. The check engine light will usually even flash while driving if a condition exists serious enough to cause harm to the converter. But this harm won’t come immediately. Only laziness in repairing the fault, or ignoring these codes and continuing to drive knowing the malfunction exists. And of course there is always the chance of a defective converter.
I don’t believe it is fair to see a P0420 or P0430 code and immediately jump to the conclusion that the cat is bad. It very well may be, and in fact, usually is. However, it is still prudent to test the converter, because they can be really expensive, and other reasons can cause the computer to report those codes. However, in your case, it is my understanding that the cats on both banks were hollowed out while you only had a code for one bank. Condemning both cats would be acceptable to me if, and only if, a proper troubleshoot was done and the other cat was proven to be in the process of failing where it maybe hadn’t gotten bad enough to set the code yet.
It didn’t sound to me (from your original post) that the shop you visited did any kind of troubleshooting, they just went by code and your description and started taking things apart. That is just bad practice. There is no excuse, imho, for a professional shop to make that kind of diagnosis, especially one that can cost the customer thousands of dollars, without a proper investigation. I cannot buy the excuse that a scan tool is too expensive for an exhaust shop, even a small one. They don’t need a $10k scanner for that kind of work. Scan tools that can display and graph O2 sensors to a smartphone with bluetooth can be had for less than $40, and nearly everyone has a smartphone these days. Any shop can at least afford that. I apologize for my rant, but this just really disturbs me. I think that shop owes you two new converters, and if it happened in my shop and this kind of situation happened, you’d be getting them.
no they only striped out bank 2. he put it on a diagnostic computer (with an apparent price of 2,500) and it “showed” the same thing autozone told me for free P0430 however since he’s the only exhaust shop in town i didn’t have the pleasure of going elsewhere.. and with the loss of power (there was a noticeable decrease in power for several weeks before the Check engine light came on) and me not wanting to be stranded with a damaged engine from back pressure, he cleaned out bank 2. i could be partly to blame on him cleaning it out like that. :unsure: :whistle: 😳
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