Catalytic Converters

[scot71]

Having to very recently replace the catalytic converters on my daughters '05 Ford Escape, of which it had three of them (Yes 3) and all went bad without prior warning. Costing about $1800.00. I am curious how many of you have ever had problems with these youselves. Maybe I've been lucky but I have never had one go bad and most ( but not all ) of the people I know have not had any troubles either.

The other thing I can't figure out is, why three "cats". It seems to me that if you need that many of them to take care of the emissions from your engine. Maybe you need to redesign your engine. The fellow where we had them replaced told me that there are some vehicles out there that have as many as 6 of them. Seems kind of ridiculous if you ask me.

 

[Julian]

What are the symptoms of bad cats?

 

[scot71]

What happened with her car. She was on her way home from school to visit doing about 60 mph. When all of a sudden it went down to about 10 mph and had absolutely no power. Apparently one or both of the cats on the manifolds gave way and fully plugged up the one further down the line. The origin of what started them to go bad in the first place is still a mystery. Hopefully we can come up with an answer.

 

[-klb-]

Usually, it is bad spark plugs, bad coils, bad injectors, or a bad sensor causing too much unburned fuel to the cats. The ones right at the manifolds are there to heat up quickly, and provide service as quickly after startup as possible. The larger one further back has more area and can do a better job once it warms up.

 

[dustinjean]

escapes are well known for their cat problems i once had a explorer comes in that one cat broke itself apart and plugged up the muffler so it put the vehicle into limp mode because it couldnt breathe, they didnt like that bill at all

 

[scot71]

Thanks for the ideas @-klb- , I have a feeling we're probably looking at coil problems. I know that one of them was replaced before she got it. Another time we had advance auto run the codes when her check engine light came on and one of the possible causes was a bad coil. They reset the light and it had not come back on since so I hadn't thought much of it. I may have dropped the ball on that one.

 

[dustinjean]

also when you do plugs go motorcraft only

 

[Big Shasta]

I had a chevy caviler way back when I was in high school and the coil went out and ruined the cat. It was running on 2 cylinders off and on for a while. I remember looking underneath one time and the cat was glowing orange from all the unburnt fuel. Me and a buddy finally fixed the coil, took the cat off, pounded all the material out with a steel rod and put it back on. Problem solved. Highly illegal and probably would cause all kinds of computer issues now but I didn't have any money for any other solution, needed my cash for IC Light. Good times.

 

[veedubtek]

Newer diesels use a DPF (diesel particulate filter). Generically speaking, pretty well the same thing. Priced one on a TDI last week, $4500. So, you got off pretty easy if you look at it that way!