Friday, December 16, 2011

Can my catalytic converter plug my exhaust or worse?

My catalytic converter is rattling because it's starting to fall apart inside. Is it okay to drive or could it cause some serious problems like plugging exhaust or destroying performance? What all could happen? Its a 99 dodge ram with the 5.9L gas if it matters.|||It could eventually plug itself up and your engine will run horrible, like 30 MPH when floored, I would get it replaced.|||All I'll say is if the catalytic converter is rattling and going bad, you '99 vehicle needs a tune-up really seriously.





Car manufacturers and the gov't say your converter should last AT LEAST 80,000 miles and the ONLY thing that destroys a cat converter prematurely is an untuned vehicle, especially if there are misfires.|||I'm not a mechanic and do not claim to be an expert in any sort. But, I had my exhaust on my VW R32 swapped out for a high performance exhaust which included down pipe all the way down to the tips. I got this incessant rattling which I could not place my thumb on. It wasn't till two weeks later that I took it back to the guy that installed it and he discovered that the O2 sensor was loose creating the rattling noise. I would definitely check that out before you go buying a new cat.|||Time to see your exhaust shop. Get that cat changed. Nothing good happens when you ignore a problem. Your exhaust is 12 years old. A little early for the cat to fail, but stranger things have happened.





Will your broken, rattly cat plug the muffler? Depends on the muffler. Some mufflers have very little material inside, depend on precise V-shaped pieces inside to quiet the exhaust noise. Others use different sort of design, so it's hard to predict how bits of loose metal will affect such a muffler. Hard to tell you what'll happen. For sure, the cat won't be converting unburned hydrocarbons. Best to replace it. Take care !!|||Will be OK to drive for awhile, but will need to be replaced eventually, especially if you live in a emissions control monitoring area, where re-registration of license plates is dependent on passing emissions tests.|||Yes it can. Back pressure builds up and steals fuel economy. I had a 78 Monte Carlo with a 305 v8 it went from 25mpg down to 13mpg, after replacing the converter my mpg's returned'|||depending on the converter, yes. you need to have one, so get cheap one from a parts store

No comments:

Post a Comment