My car is a year 2002 Audi A4, Quarttro 3.0, V6, 97000 miles.

Lately I actually noticed a decrease in performance and notice a decrease in fuel economy, so I bring it to a auto shop to check what's wrong, and they told me that the catalytic converter is causing the problem.

What is the warranty on the catalytic converter? The auto shop guy told me that it is cover my the california law for the dealer to replace it for free if it has under 100000 miles. However, the dealer told me that the warranty cover only 8 yrs or 80000 miles?

Well, I just brought this car, so it has one month warranty on the car by the seller, I might bring it back to them, and have them to replace it, however, they're 3 hours away from me, will there be a problem if I drive 3 hours with this known problem?

I really need your help, any suggesting, advice would be greatly appreciate it.

 

ye the law is confusing, the california law warranty is way longer that the regular gov't law. There should be a warranty bookleat, ther you can read it up.

the cats is not cheap OEM but you can always go with universals. having 97K miles the cats should not be busted, unless there where lowgrade fuel in there.

You should be worried, couse you are poluting the air, ahhh, dont worry, the cat is like a web, where by use of science, the cat rips off the air molecule and releases it, thously geting more air out. for more info read it up. probably ash got clocged up it there cousing high back presure. check the vacuem and the air filter.

 

ehh if it wasnt for the strict laws, i would so go get a free flowing cat.. and get some more power out of that baby.. 3 hours is a long way to go, have you contacted the seller yet? so your not to drive three hours and just drop this problem on his lap.. that would be harsh, and he would probably not want to replace it for that matter. Or is it a Used car lot that you bought it from? If so also contact them so they can setup an appointment, you might get up there, and they say they cant do anything till next week for some odd reason.. just my .02

 

Yeah I called them, and they said they will fix it on monday, how do you know what's causing the cat to failed?

I should say how to check for SURE, so that the future one won't fail again.

 

A lot of cats fail because of a A/F mix thats too rich.

 

A/F??????/

What is this?

 

Do you have a CEL? If not, I would get a second opinion. There are two O2 sensors, one in front and one behind the CAT. They check the CATs efficiency.

 

Opinion is great. However, those fricing mechanic charge like 85 bucks just to take a look at it, and only takes 5-10 minutes or so.

What is a CEL? I already went to a mechanic, and they use the OBD to test it, and it showed the cat is the problem, so the O2 senor might the thing that's cause the cat to go bad.

 

CEL= check engine light
AF= air fuel, its a ratio. air fuel ratio. too much fuel=rich, not enough fuel=lean.

also if the oil was changed and too much oil was added this can effect ur cats.
i say go universal there is no reason to go with an OEM cat.

and no the o2 sensor wont cause the cat to go bad. but if the cat is bad the o2 sensor should give you a CEL.

 

hydrocarbons are a catalytic converters enemy, if an o2 sensor is clogged up and causing a rich running vehicle this could cause some unburned fuel (hydro carbons) to enter the cat and over time this will cause damage but is not very likely, what is more likely is at one time the car had a misfiring cylinder and alot of unburned fuel entered the cat screwing it up and no one bothered to fix the cat.