2002 Mercury Sable LS vin "s"

Hi All,



The above car needs to have the catalyics replaced (2 out of 3). So I’m opting out to go ahead and replace all 3. The problem that I’m having is that supposedly the “vin s” has a cat thats part of the manifold so they say, or don’t say. Is there anyone out there that can say for sure. I’ve been googling around and can not at the moment find a definitive answer. A link to what I’m looking for would be a great help. The dealership wants 3600 dollars to do the job. Like I can aford that! The mechanic that would like to do the job is fustrated because first he gets one answer and then another. I told him that I would happily assist in any info. I don’t want the car disassembled and then find out that we have the wrong cat or that he has to do additional mods to get it back and running. All responses greatly appreciated.



Thanks



The dealership’s parts department should be able to look up your vehicle’s exact configuration with your VIN number. Just ask. Ask nicely and they’ll probably be willling to print the information for you. You need not tell them why you’re asking.

With that information in hand your chosen shop should have no problem getting the right parts.

I did just that the day of the diagnostic, and they were not willing to give me anything of relevance. I told them that I would like this info for my maintenance records.

thanks

Those stinkers! May the balls fall out of their CV joints.

Any other Ford dealers in your neck of the woods?

Small city, the other dealership closed their doors and relocated several days later. Difficult at the moment…

So which one is yours ?
Tell me your whole vin, or the last eight digits,or…
look at the vin, the eighth digit is the engine code. Two engine types just so happened to have ended up 3.0 l displacement. Very different engines unrelated to each other in parts. You don’t get to pick one price over the other, but maybe the source of the parts.
-U- 3.0 ohv - overhead valve aka a push rod engine.
-2- 3.0 ohv, flex-fuel.
-S- 3.0 dohc - dual overhead cam engine.
The -S- dohc is the one with a cat/manifold on the right bank ( the firewall side ) of the engine.

A muffler repair shop can cut out the catalytic converter(s) and replace with aftermarket converters, for a reasonable amount.
A natural question is: “Why do you think that the catalytic converter(s) must be changed?” Maybe, they don’t. If they really have failed, what caused them to fail, and have those causes been remedied? If they haven’t, the replacement catalytic converter(s) will fail.

Your v.i.n. is on the driver’s door info sticker, the driver’s side base of the windshield, your insurance card and your registration. It is a 17 digit series of letters and numbers.
Going home in 7 minutes, see yall tomorrow.

I do not know for sure on the '02 models, but on some of the earlier models the front converter was actually the front header pipe, or Y-pipe as it’s called.

From looking at it one would think this pipe is nothing but a plain old header Y-pipe but it’s actually a converter with substrate material inside of it.

You definitely need to price this around. No way should you go 3600 dollars on this repair.

And I hope your car has been correctly diagnosed. Converters are something that are frequently guessed at. Hope that helps.

1MEFM55S82G634185
V6, 3.0L (182 CID) DOHC 24V
CHECK DIGIT 8
ASSY PLANT- CHICAGO
PRODUCTION SEQ# 634185
200HP

EGR and hoses fried, replaced and those fried too. I didn’t want to put on the other replacements. Took the car to the dealership for diagnostics and they are the ones that said that the rear cat and the middle cat were bad.

Good Morning Ken,

vin 1MEFM55S82G634185

Back in the hamster wheel again.
Yep, yours is the dohc 3.0. As advised herein, also ask a muffler shop for pricing.
The Ford list price of all three converters and gaskets is $3086.91 plus labor.
Ask your dealer for parts discounts to “win” the job. At this dealer we’d go $2316.88 for parts. Labor is always different dealer to dealer.

cat/manifold # 2F1Z-5G232-AA list $1305.80 - sell $979.35
front (left bank ) cat/ y-pipe # 2F1Z-5E212-AB list $ 1040.37 - sell $ 780.28
rear cat incl.flex joint # 2F1Z-5E212-AA list $ 706.83 - sell $ 530.12
plus three gaskets, not stocked, order as needed.

3600 dollars at the dealership to replace all 3 cats or 2400 to replace 2 cats. The problem we are running into is that parts people are saying " vin s models with the cat attached to the manifold must be replaced by the dealership." If it was “vin u” we would have no problems. Googling around does not show me any cat with a manifold attached to it. So last week we ready to order parts and now this week we are getting different answers.