Auditech, how sure are you that it is my catalytic converter? From what I have read, very rarely do cats go bad especially at only 52k miles. Isn't there a possibility that my oxygen sensors have gone bad and are throwing up these codes?

I am asking you this because though the cats might be covered under the federal 8y/80k warranty, the oxygen sensors are most probably not covered. I am a bit worried about the cost that might be involved in replacing the O2 sensors.

 

There is about a 5% chance of the O2 sensors being bad with that fault code, trust me its the cats, replaced over 100 3.0L cats in about 3 years and about 2 O2 sensors for that fault code.
It says in the manual if you have that code to replace the cat converters first, then diag any other problems that could occur.

 

Do you think that the the dealer should replace both cat converters? I know if one is going, the other one can't be too far behind. Then again, I did get only error code P0421 (which I think is Bank 1 - passenger side). I did not get P0431 (Bank 2 - driver side) error, which means the dealer could technically refuse to replace the second cat.

Any thoughts on how the dealer might proceed with this? Did you had to deal with a situation like this?

 

By law they can't replace the other cat converter without the fault code, but your're right the other one probably will fail sometime in the future.

 

Here are some pictures from under my car where it leaks. Just wondering if you can tell me what I am looking at here. Is this serious? Since I am going in for my service tomorrow, I might as well try to get this fixed.






http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/a...e/IMG_0479.jpg
http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/a...e/IMG_0481.jpg

Just figured out how to embed pictures in a post.........I had to try it in one of my posts

 

[sm=icon_rofl.gif]Ha hait looks like its just water. On the passenger's side right? Been using you A/C lately?
Thats exactly where the drain for the evaporator drips out under the vehicle.

 

Took my car to the dealer today. He said the procedure they follow for the cat convertor error code is this - they clear the code the first time. If the check engine light comes back on again, then they go in and replace the cats under the federal warranty. So the dealer cleared the code and guess what, after driving around the city today, it came back on again. I guess I will need the cats replaced after all. I hope I can convince them to replace both cats even though there is no code for bank 2.

 

Ha ha, erase the code first huh? Thats funny, that just tells you how much they don't wanna do the cat converters on a 3.0L.

 

Just to give this one a closure in case anyone is interested, the CEL came back on a couple of days after the dealer had cleared it. It was the same code P0421. Today the dealer replaced the faulty catalytic convertor under the federal 8 year/80,000 miles warranty. He also said that they cannot replace the other cat because it did not throw out any fault codes and he will be liable to Audi if he replaced a part that does not need replacing. Oh well.....I am not complaining. At least I don't have the annoying CEL staring at me anymore. Thanks auditech79!

 

good news, free cat!

I had that code on my old 2.8 and it was an O2 sensor. I was worried it was the cat as I did not know about any emission warranty then