1st Gen Lunchtable Thread - General Discussion

And with that, my brain has turned into mush. I have dealt with too many cars today. I've spent two days in 100 degree heat in six different junkyards, had my friend call me in a panic because he locked his keys in and though I could magically open his door, have another friend call me over at 10:30 PM to look at this M45...

I want to say I never want to see another car ever again, but this is my life now.

Don't be the resident car guy. The amount of times people have called me to jumpstart their car or fix a flat tire is astounding.

 

Actually i may of mis read the cat thing now. Im really to tired to care and its not my car. But here is this https://parts.bonitaspringsinfiniti...XHAUST-SYSTEM-EXHAUST-COMPONENTS/3865270.html

 

You will still need to do a "drive cycle" to clear the deep codes. Are you confident that you can get this car repaired 100%?

Things like this have a way of really biting you in the ass. This is the same reason that nice cars can be picked up cheap. Paying for diagnosis can get very expensive.

How someone can spend that kind of money for a luxury car and just ignore the CEL for months or years just amazes me.

I think they intended to treat the car as a disposable car in the 1st place. Offer them the price of a disposable car. Be prepared to spend a lot of hours figuring out what is wrong.

I guarantee that you have the same skills that many 1st year auto tech's have, maybe more. Do you think it will be fair when the customer doesn't think you should get $150/hr for diagnosis?

Walk away from this as a repair job.

 

That's the one. The two cats are welded on as one piece with the Y pipe.

 

Then why are you going to all the trouble of changing the cats then. Disconnect the battery to clear the CEL. The code was for catalyst inefficiency, not non functioning catalyst. The light comes on because the ECU is recording values different than what is normal. It knows nothing about what comes out the tail pipe.

Did they take it in with the CEL lit expecting to pass smog?

Does smog include hooking up to the OBD11 port in your state? Seems odd to me that they would do a tail pipe sniff but not hook up and check for pending codes.

 

I think that car is new enough to not tail pipe only obd2

 

All very good points.

I'm not trying to buy the thing, I just was asked for my opinion on it and if I could replace the converters themselves. It looks like this specific year m45 had a single piece 'y' pipe with the integrated and welded converters so that's out of the question for me.

They also had an M3 parked next to it, and a GL 64 AMG in the driveway.

If you had to compare the costs of all those three cars, the M45 is the cheapest one and I hate to call that beautiful car a beater - but it looks like that's what it is.

I told him I couldn't do it outright, and told him to call a couple shops I recommended.

 

Whelp have fun with thats. Take pics if you do it lol

 

Passenger side is confirmed to be bad by the Infiniti dealer, and the driver's side is 'beginning to fail'. Another independent shop had the same diagnosis.

 

Just sell it to another state, your states trash is a perfectly good car in any of the better states, new york excluded. Either way you could just weld in 4 new universal CARB cats and be good to go. This isn't open brain surgery, anything else will reveal itself after a drive cycle.

 

It's a daily driver, I don't think they plan on selling it. The registration is up in August so they want to get it fixed.

I already told the guy I couldn't do it outright. I had the idea of looking into the repair more when I got home, which I am right now. But it looks like this would be way over my head so I'm going to pass on it. I'll give him some leads on new cats, and the shop I bring my cars to.

 

Just tell them to buy the y pipe then bolt it up lol

 

Michigan beats California!

We got road salt, but no smog testing!

With that said, I lose my mind when I get a CEL. The car is getting fixed asap.

 

According to tyler California is the best state because no road salt.

 

And he can buy every POS and park it in his folks drive.

I'm starting to worry that code enforcement may be getting ready to pay a visit.

These guys aren't stupid and blind.

 

What you haven't fallen in love with the great Phx metro area?

 

I'm bored more often than not, not much I need to see in a metro area. I was going to go camp in the flagstaff area this weekend but looks like that isn't gonna happen now.

 

ok so we are over here now...
anyone going camping this weekend?

 

Was hoping to but I don't think I'll find the time for a couple of weeks now

 

I'm just getting out over night Sat-Sun before SHTF