Cats.....Dead???

I am just wondering what happens when catalytic converters die. my car has been runing rich for a while now. i have been hearing some sounds from my exhuast. almost like there are some tiny pebbles in there that are getting blown around. i wondering if this is my cat/cats.

any idea?

 

your cats dead, if its eyes won't open!

 

lol

 

back to your real question, if your cat goes out and there is still rattling going around, it's best to change it fast otherwise you'll run into problems soon... the chunks can clog the flow of the exhuast and create heat that is not needed...

 

the sounds only really comes up when the car is still kinda cold, and i give it alotta gas. then as it warms upt he sound goes away. so it is fesable that the like sounds are th cats breaking up then?

 

if your cats were plugged and bad...your car would barely run, rpm's wouldnt increase at all.

 

For sure. When the cat fails and clogs up the pipe, your car will barely run, much less give you WOT. The old "Banana up the Subaru" gag.

As for hot and cold operation, it sounds like something in your exhaust is loose and the temperature is making it expand and contract. Then it could be anything.

Of course, cheapest solution is to not give it lots of gas when cold.

 

the cat can go bad, and sometimes when it does, it breaks up into chunks that float around in the cat housing.
when you rev it, does it rattle? has the exhaust note changed?

it could be.
on my saturn, when the cat went it rattled around with change of throttle. it also sounded like a freaking kazoo.
once we cut it off, i could see the chunks rattling around in it.

 

How many miles on the car? If less than 80,000 your cats get replaced for free. It's federally mandated. I got mine replaced for free on my RS not too long ago.

 

the car has 131k on it so no free cat rerplacement. it must be the cats. the car does sounds different now it is kinda of whispy. i will have to start looking at gettign some new exhuast apprently.

 

131k, lol, you might even not be breaking federal law when you replace the thing....

 

I vote for a full turboback exhaust to solve his problems.

It's funny, but when the cats break down because of time, and not crappy design, it looks like sand.

Race mufflers use fiberglass packing like home insulation. I've replaced the packing on my Ninja twice.

 

it seems liek you ppl keep forgetting that my car is NA. thats why it so slow lol

 

hhmm.......my car kinda rattles on wot too.......and i do throw a CEL, forgot the code but its states that my cats are below threshold.....probably due to half of it melting away when my car was shooting flames back then with the dead 02 sensor.