5.3l Catalytic Converter

[Grey Ghost]

Anyone ever had one go bad? I thought the engine on my wife's Suburban was gonna come apart. At idle, it was knocking like a real bad rod or main bearing gone bad. I was extremely relieved when I crawled under it last night and found the rattling/knocking coming from the driver's side cat. Apparently the array came unwelded from the case.

Anyone know a good place to get just the cat at a good price? A local muffler shop quoted me $265 to replace it. GM dealer wanted over $600 just for parts! They were just going to replace both sides from the manifolds to the flange downstream of the "Y". F--- that!

So again, anyone know of a good source for a cat?


TIA,

Gary

 

[BigBlueChevy]

Don't go to the stealer as you where shown very well that they will have no problem taking your money. If your good with your hands and or have a firend who is you can check carparts.com. Or, hit up a junkyard, find one and put that on.

 

[Unit453]

Magnaflow makes high flow cats. I've been running them on my Ford for 5 years now. They're no where near $600. I dont remember what I paid for them but maybe $150? They were like half the price of OEM crap.

 

[BigBlueChevy]

Nick makes a good point there too. Didn't even think of a better aftermarket. I kinda figured you wanted more of a stock replacement. But hell you can use jegs or summit. They both have a huge selection of cats you can put on.

 

[Grey Ghost]

Thanks for the replies!!


Gary

 

[Ed HD]

Similar thing happened on my mom's suburban. Went to Jegs and got a brand new Y-pipe for $250 shipped. Installed for another $100, and it was still half price of what they wanted for parts at the local store.

 

[Wrecker]

I bought my last hi flow cat from Summit. I think is was about $150 then. It's been a few years, though.

 

[WilliamBos]

Anyone ever had one go bad? I thought the engine on my wife's Suburban was gonna come apart. At idle, it was knocking like a real bad rod or main bearing gone bad. I was extremely relieved when I crawled under it last night and found the rattling/knocking coming from the driver's side cat. Apparently the array came unwelded from the case.

Anyone know a good place to get just the cat at a good price? A local muffler shop quoted me $265 to replace it. GM dealer wanted over $600 just for parts! They were just going to replace both sides from the manifolds to the flange downstream of the "Y". F--- that!

So again, anyone know of a good source for a cat?


TIA,

Gary

We lost the drivers side cat when the front oxygen sensor went bad, and BOTH cats are on the Y-Pipe. Luckily, Federal Emissions warranty covered the cat. 8 Years/130,000 Kms.

Do you still have federal emissions warranty left?? We have used aftermarket cats before on our 1988 1500, and we had to replace them every 2 years. The burnt out, so every etest time, we had to change them. If I ever have to replace them again, unless someone can guarantee that the aftermarket stuff is good, even if it is the high end, I will pay and get the GM Y-Pipe.

 

[Ed HD]

We don't have a Federal Emissions Warranty in the U.S. that I'm aware of.

 

[docdray]

to veer of course for a minute, one thing I have learned is there is a difference on quality on cat prices. due to the amount of precious metals inside. I had a honda cat that went bad, replaced with a $150 one, o2 code kept setting. found out some mfg's ecm's sensitivity is very tight and had to get a $550 cat that finally solved the problem. I don't think gm runs that tight a tolerance on bank2 o2's.

 

[Ed HD]

I guess we do have an Emissions warranty as well. It's usually 8yr/80k miles.

Most GM vehicles don't have very tight tolerances. On my car I'm removing the Rear 02 from the equation, as I don't have any inspections, etc, and I'm going to a Magnaflow 3" HF cat.