Hey Scotty
My wife's old 2001 Camry CE has the P0420. It has 133,000 plus miles on it. It still runs and drives great except for the Check Engine Light with the P0420 code. Do you think a car this old is worth replacing the cat and keep driving it till it dies as the cost of the work will be almost the whole price of the car about $1000CAD or $740 US.
Should we keep driving it like this or will the bad CAT start to affect the engine and ruin it? This is the 2.4L L4 engine.
Thanks and all the best from Canada
- Well if it runs okay. I've seen people drive cameras five six years that way with no problems at all. The problem is you're in Canada. I'm assuming where you are they doing missions testing in which case it would fail. But if they don't do emissions testing you could just keep driving it as long as it runs okay
P0420 does not always mean the catalytic converter is the root cause. You have to do the proper diagnostics and confirm (or rule out) that it is the catalytic converter. For that start here:
https://www.obd-codes.com/p0420
https://mechanicbase.com/trouble-code/p0420/
Videos here:
https://carkiller.com/scottykilmer/postid/82224/
Thanks Scotty. If I skip doing the cat, will I notice fuel consumption issues?
Thanks