Is there a risk to driving your car if you know your catalytic converter is failed? My Honda dealer told me it would be $2,000 just for the part, and I want to look into buying the part and installing it myself. But I don’t want to damage my engine or emissions system.
Visit an independent shop and a muffler shop. You can go aftermarket parts with at least 50% savings if not way more.
A cat converter that has failed means the donwstream O2 sensor has likely failed too.
How do you know it failed?? Year? Mileage?
it is a 2002, has 153k miles. I took it to the dealer because the malfunction light came on, so I wanted to get it diagnosed. They told me the cc had failed. It seems like aftermarket parts are the way to go. My research showed that the dealer part cost 10 times what the aftermarket part cost. How can that be?? (a rhetorical question, of course)
There may be nothing wrong with the cat. Bad O2 sensors will produce a code similar to “catalytic converter operating below threshold.” This does NOT mean the cat needs to be replaced.
Get another opinion from another mechanic.
As I usually do, I am in agreement with mcparadise.
Just because the dealership gave you a diagnosis of “bad cat converter” does not necessarily mean that this is an accurate diagnosis.
As mcparadise stated, the codes that they used for this diagnosis could also just indicate the need for new O2 sensors.