Aftermarket Cat issues

[megy]

Hi all,

My Wife has an 04 plate Forrester which needed a new Cat fitted a little over a year back, options were about £600 for a dealer fit genuine part or half that price for one fitted by one of the high street tyre/exhaust fitters, so we went for the cheaper option. Within about a month the engine management light came on so we went to Subaru who said that its due to the non Subaru Cat we fitted and they reset the codes and all was well for about another 2 to 3 weeks, then the light came on again, we went back to Subaru and were told that its not an issue, just that the cars dont like the non Subaru parts so throw the fault code up.

Fast forward to now and the car needs its MOT, it turns out that the engine management light being on is an MOT fail, so the car would fail for an issue that isnt really an issue or a problem.

Please, no one say that we should have gone for the Subaru parts, but has anyone else had a similar problem with non Subaru parts and MOT failures and what we can do to get around this. When I spoke to the service dept at the local dealers they said the only way around it is to fit the genuine part, not really a viable option.

Any help or advise would be greatly appreciated.

[m8rky]

Get the EM light put out just before you take it for MOT,as long it stays out and the emmisions are ok no problem.
On a general note an MOT tester friend of mine is of the view that some of the cheaper cats are little better than a worn out OEM one.

[megy]

m8rky said:

Get the EM light put out just before you take it for MOT,as long it stays out and the emmisions are ok no problem.
On a general note an MOT tester friend of mine is of the view that some of the cheaper cats are little better than a worn out OEM one.

Meant to say that as an option, but the stealers want £50 as half an hours labour to do it, so doubling the cost of an MOT, now looking around for a non main dealer garaeg to do it, hopefully cheaper.

Cheers for the reply though

[sparkyhx]

If ther charge for the Diagnostics - most garages do, get your own code reader - they are relatively cheap and easy to use. It will probably pay for itself once.

p.s. how does the car know its got a non std CAT, surely the light comes on if something is out of a preset range, which would indicate there is a problem, maybe intermittent

[rhinochopig]

Check the lambda sensor. They do fail, and throw up the same warning light. It went on my old Scooby after a dowsing on a flooded road. It *might* not be the Cat.

[sparkyhx]

megy said:

m8rky said:

Get the EM light put out just before you take it for MOT,as long it stays out and the emmisions are ok no problem.
On a general note an MOT tester friend of mine is of the view that some of the cheaper cats are little better than a worn out OEM one.

Meant to say that as an option, but the stealers want £50 as half an hours labour to do it, so doubling the cost of an MOT, now looking around for a non main dealer garaeg to do it, hopefully cheaper.

Cheers for the reply though

The great OBD rip off, 3 mins work at best, you can buy your own simple one for £20, a more complicated one for less than £100