Universal Catalytic Converters???

I went to the dealer and was told that the cats on my 2001 Taco 3.4 Prerunner were bad and be charged $1900 to replace,, TOO MUCH!!! So I took my Taco to a local muffler shop and replaced them with some universal Magnaflow cats. My engine light stayed on. I took the truck back to the dealer and after hours of checking everything, incluiding the O2 sensors & MAF, they came to the conclusion that why it kept on reading an OBD II code was that my cats WERE TOO MUCH OF A FREE FLOW CAT and that they were not burning up the entire gases, thus the engine light remained on. They did tell me i could "drive the truck to the ground" and everything would be ok.My concern is that i was told by a local perfomance shop mechanic that if i did not replace those cats with some HEAVY METAL CATS i would BURN MY PISTON RINGS. Oh, he would charge me $1000 to replace them. Has anyone heard of this happening or experienced something like this? I am confused as to what to do, repalce the, leave them,, any ideas???

 

Ever heard about a "O2 Cheater"?

 

Gotta love the old days.
In my 82, I just removed the cat and put in a straight pipe. Northwest Off-road used to sell the straight pipes as a "test pipe". The idea being that if you're cat wasn't working properly you could put in a test pipe to see how much flow improved. Anyway, since they didn't have 02 sensors, it was never an issue.

Good luck with what ever you end up doing......sucks to have to deal with this smog crap.

 

I dont have to deal with emissions because of where my truck is registered. But do you know or heard of any internal engine damage caused by cats that were too "free flow"???? i dont want to spend $ if i dont have too? Truck runs fine, have towd a jeep and carried 5 people on a lenghty trips and truck is idling fine.

 

1 cat, 2 cats, 3 cats, no cats. it doesn't matter, your piston rings will be fine. your taco being an 01 needs a 3way cat(for 3 different gases) if the muffler shop installed 2 way cats then that MIL will never turn off.

 

thanks,, i guess they wanted my $$$,,, any advice on turning off that light?

 

02 sim?? never heard of it. what does it do and where does it go?

 

had anyone ever try this URD Oxygen Sensor Simulator????

 

Want a totally boring opinion? If you havent already, do an exhaust mod-you have a nice group of addons for breathing as it is. Beyond that, your engine is doing a fantastic job moving that truck around...especially on them 33's. Jus my opinion though-I personally dont like to mess with sensors and such too much-especially on our motors-Toyota engineered them to a T as it is

 

i took it to the dealer and was shown a graph after they did a complete diagnostic that the cats flowed "too free" and werent burning up all the excess gases.

 

post your P0xxx fault that the dealership gave you. sometimes things aren't always what they seem, and P0 codes can do that.

 

This is exactly what the dealer wrote: " 91275 UPON INSPECTION FOUND VEHICLE HAS PO420- CATALYST SYSTEM EFFICIENCY BELOW THRESHOLD (BANK1) - NECESSARY TO INSPECT SYSTEM. UPON INSPECTION FOUND AFTERMARKET CATS NOT PERFORMING TO SPEC. PERFORMED NECESSARY CHECKS ON A/F SENSOR AND 02 SENSOR. FOUND A/F SENSOR READING 350 DEGREES FAHR. AND FOUND 02 SENSOR READING 230 DEGREES FAHR. 02 SENSOR NEEDS TO BE AT AROUND 600 DEGREES FAHR NECESSARY TO MANUALY CHECK SENSORS TO VERIFY NORMAL OPERATIONS. SENSORS CHECKED OK. UPON INSPECTION FOUND CATS NOT REDUCING ENOUGH EMISSIONS THEREFORE NOT HEATING PROPERLY. RECOMMEND REPLACING CATS FOR PROPER REPAIR.

 

I dont want to spend $ on new cats, think that current set up is better than stock,, should i jst by the 02 SIM to trick comp and leave it alone??? (when mechanic read this he said my piston rings were going to fry) i think he wants my $

 

looking at the data the dealer gave you, i not sure that is entirely correct. o2 sensors heat up not only from exhaust gases but also due to the heating element inside the sensor itself. hence ho2s(heated oxygen sensor). that heating elemet is controlled via the ecm. usually heated o2 sensor are placed only in front of the cat or upstream which monitors fuel trim. Your p0420 fault is set by the rear o2 sensors which monitors catalyst efficiency. Rear or downstream sensors don't tend to heat up as much. if you really want to keep the hi flow cats, the o2 simulator would do the trick but you would probraly fail emissions tests.

 

thanks, as long as nothing happens to my engine and i can turn off the engine lite with the 02 sim then i will be happy