My husband has a 97 Suzuki Esteem and I have a 99 Mazda Protege. Both cars are dead in his grandmother’s yard (real classy…). My car has a bad cat converter, and his is just and old ugly car with 4 slashed tires (courtesy of his crazy brother). Can I steal his cat converter?
You could “steal” his converter and sell if for scrap. Its unlikely that you could “steal” it and put it on your car.
A bad catalytic converter typically won’t keep a car from running, though. So why is it just sitting?
The parts are not interchangeable. If you wanted to steal his catalytic converter, it will probably fetch a pretty good amount of money from the right recycler, but it won’t fit your car. As far as replacing it, this job is not typically a DIY job as it typically requires a torch, possibly a welder, and a specific set of skills to do the job correctly and effectively.
I gotta’ ask, how do you know the cat is bad? There is no code which tells you for certain the cat is bad. The computer normally checks gases coming in, and coming out, and if the difference is not sufficient, it ASSUMES the cat is bad. When I Googled it, most mechanics stated most bad cat codes are actually bad sensors.
True you cant use his Cat on your vehicle… I also have to second Irlandes comment on how you know that you have a bad Cat…They rarely go bad, have no moving parts etc… The primary mode of failure with a Cat is that they break apart inside and come out the tailpipe…or they totally clog up…preventing the engine from running at all… Rust out… Not many other failure modes