Noisy catalyst
Discussion
I've had a light rattle from under the car. A garage has just diagnosed a rattly catalyst.
It is on a 2004 SLK 320 Merc, so not worth an awful lot of money. It is rev specific. Blip the throttle and it is noisy. Drive the car and it is fine.
It comes to an incredible amount via Merc, well over £1000 fitted.
Any chance of it getting better?
I'm reluctant to go pattern.
It is on a 2004 SLK 320 Merc, so not worth an awful lot of money. It is rev specific. Blip the throttle and it is noisy. Drive the car and it is fine.
It comes to an incredible amount via Merc, well over £1000 fitted.
Any chance of it getting better?
I'm reluctant to go pattern.
It isn't going to get better on its own. Is it internal or is it just an external heat shield loose as the latter should be easily fixable with a bit of welding.
Problem with pattern cats in that they may be OK for an MoT straight after fitting but could well fail on emissions the following year.
That's from 2x personal experience with family member's cars & the experience of my usual Mot tester.
To enlarge on the 2 issues, both cars were Peugeot 306 1.6.
Pipe on one cat had rusted through & was blowing. Owner of car had forgotten his Mot was due to run out - until I rang him at Uni as I thought it was about due - & a pattern cat was the quick option to get it through.
Following year failed on emissions. I'd kept the original cat & had welded the pipe back on. Fitted it & the emissions dropped to virtually zero.
Car number 2 came with a pattern cat fitted & new MoT. Next Mot fail on emissions. Used genuine cat fitted with the same result as for car No1.
The pattern ones were under half the overall size of the genuine article.
Problem with pattern cats in that they may be OK for an MoT straight after fitting but could well fail on emissions the following year.
That's from 2x personal experience with family member's cars & the experience of my usual Mot tester.
To enlarge on the 2 issues, both cars were Peugeot 306 1.6.
Pipe on one cat had rusted through & was blowing. Owner of car had forgotten his Mot was due to run out - until I rang him at Uni as I thought it was about due - & a pattern cat was the quick option to get it through.
Following year failed on emissions. I'd kept the original cat & had welded the pipe back on. Fitted it & the emissions dropped to virtually zero.
Car number 2 came with a pattern cat fitted & new MoT. Next Mot fail on emissions. Used genuine cat fitted with the same result as for car No1.
The pattern ones were under half the overall size of the genuine article.
Quite often the issues with so called pattern cats is that they are ceramic rather than the metallic substrates used by OE manufacturers.
Not exclusively, of course, some use much smaller cats which also doesn't help.
If you can get "eyes on" the replacement & check it is the same size and that it uses metallic substrates you should be OK.
Alternatively if you have some fab skills/facilities you could get something like this
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Flowmaster-Universal-Sta...
and then sleeve it in place of the original.
Not exclusively, of course, some use much smaller cats which also doesn't help.
If you can get "eyes on" the replacement & check it is the same size and that it uses metallic substrates you should be OK.
Alternatively if you have some fab skills/facilities you could get something like this
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Flowmaster-Universal-Sta...
and then sleeve it in place of the original.
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