Consipiracy of Catalytic and CEL

by **P Funky** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 8:17 am

K, I don't get this... my CEL went on, Toyota dealership charged me $90 to tell me the Catalytic Converter is going, I was holding out to find a good after-market replacement (see the thread called "Catty Con").

NOW... the CEL went off. Yesterday. And it hasn't been on again since. So... essentially.... wtf? Is it a problem for real, or not? I'm confused like whoah.

by **Jackass-Jeff** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 8:31 am

How much do you trust your dealer? Some dealers rush and miss-diagnose the problem... if you see another thread by RichD, I explained his Cat. converter code may also be:

o2 sensor after cat, open circuit/short circuit in wiring from post-cat o2 sensor to ecu, or the cat

That $90 is for 1 hour of diagnosis... so it seems like they pulled the code and stopped there . . . Call the service dept and speak w/ the service manager/director. Tell him you feel they didn't diagnose it properly since the light turned off (possibly o2 sensor is bad, not the cat) . . . the o2 sensors are known to work and stop and work and stop, etc...

by **SC V6** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 8:35 am

yeah.. diagnostic fees are stupid

by **Jackass-Jeff** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 8:36 am

SC V6 wrote:yeah.. diagnostic fees are stupid

if i asked you to work for free, would you? We'll waive it for regular customers sometimes OR waive it along side a large service (90k)... but it varies by the service writer and technician. Naturally the writer has to sell it and the tech decides to claim his cash or just be a nice guy.

Tech has to get the car, pull it into his stall, go borrow the test tool from the tool room (we're a big dealer and only have 8 or so... smaller dealers probably can't afford multiple $6000+ tools... so imagine a line for the damn tool) and the car is in your stall so you can't do any other work while the car is parked... you get paid by the amount of work you do and not hourly... 30 mins later, you finally barely get the code... now what? 30 mins of your time for free? Most likely not.

by **P Funky** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 8:39 am

Yeah, they do offer to take that diagnostic fee out of the total cost of work if I do decide to get it repaired. BUt thanks, I will clal the service manager and make some inquiries.

Any other thoughts?

by **Fletch** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 9:17 am

Next time, take it to Auto Zone and have them read the CEL, I think they will still do it for free.

Then you can get good free advice right here on troubleshooting the problem.

Website · by **Turbosolara** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 9:36 am

dealer always charge you for hours, regardless what kind task you were doing. That's why people got different pricing for install suspension and supercharger, because there is no hour guide line for them. When you take your car dealer to repair and ask for how much, they just look up the hours that requires to work and tell you the labor price.

but for $90, you can buy a OBDII scanner off ebay already.

by **JoeB** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 9:50 am

That code is triggered by the after-cat O2 sensor. If it determines that the mixture hitting it is too rich, it assumes the reason is the cat is not doing its job. As Jeff mentioned, there are a couple things that could go wrong with the normal sensing to create that indication but in general, it's saying there is too much gas getting past the cat. It could be caused by a number of reasons but if it's not a critical (flashing CEL) I would always recommend disconnecting the battery and reset it to see if it comes back. If you have the means, I would always get the code read an OBD2 scanner is a great tool. If you don't have one many discount auto stores will scan it for free. As far as 30 minutes to read the code.... all I'll say is I can do it in about 5 minutes and that includes getting my laptop and cable, booting it up, connecting it and reading the code... -JoeB

by **DatSRBoi** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 10:58 am

JoeB wrote:That code is triggered by the after-cat O2 sensor. If it determines that the mixture hitting it is too rich, it assumes the reason is the cat is not doing its job. As Jeff mentioned, there are a couple things that could go wrong with the normal sensing to create that indication but in general, it's saying there is too much gas getting past the cat. It could be caused by a number of reasons but if it's not a critical (flashing CEL) I would always recommend disconnecting the battery and reset it to see if it comes back. If you have the means, I would always get the code read an OBD2 scanner is a great tool. If you don't have one many discount auto stores will scan it for free. As far as 30 minutes to read the code.... all I'll say is I can do it in about 5 minutes and that includes getting my laptop and cable, booting it up, connecting it and reading the code... -JoeB

How do I get myself one of those program and wire thingie for my latop

by **JoeB** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 4:19 pm

There are many. URD sells one that is only $99. I looked at it on their web page and it appears to have a very user friendly interface. Check it out here ->http://www.urdusa.com/product_info.php?cPath=76_71&products_id=840100000. I am using one called Car Code. It's a good scanner and gets data faster than any other I've tried but the interface sucks. I think it was $132 here -> http://www.obd-2.com/. Another one that looks very good but I've never tried it is the EASE Diagnostics tool. It's currently $350 but according to the sales rep there, within a month their price structure will change and it will be around $100 for the hardware and then $100 per application (software for vehicle). You can see that one here -> http://www.obd2.com -JoeB

by **DatSRBoi** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 5:00 pm

JoeB wrote:There are many. URD sells one that is only $99. I looked at it on their web page and it appears to have a very user friendly interface. Check it out here ->http://www.urdusa.com/product_info.php?cPath=76_71&products_id=840100000. I am using one called Car Code. It's a good scanner and gets data faster than any other I've tried but the interface sucks. I think it was $132 here -> http://www.obd-2.com/. Another one that looks very good but I've never tried it is the EASE Diagnostics tool. It's currently $350 but according to the sales rep there, within a month their price structure will change and it will be around $100 for the hardware and then $100 per application (software for vehicle). You can see that one here -> http://www.obd2.com -JoeB

OMG the last one is like a dream come true... I can plug it to the laptop and reset my CEL on PO135 like every 20 miles

Thanks.. Im going to so wait til it gets cheaper though.

by **CASTRO** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 9:39 pm

i use a scan gauge. It plugs into your obd2 port and reads sensor info such as water temp, intake temp, voltage etc in realtime right from the ecu. It cost 130 shipped and also can read/clear codes. I used it to clear many codes even while driving, its great. I have mine plugged in all the time for the guages and info it spits out.

Consipiracy of Catalytic and CEL

Consipiracy of Catalytic and CEL

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