On one of your episodes you recommended to try a cleaner but I don’t remember the name of the product. My wife’s cousin has a 2013 Subaru Forester with 146,000 miles. Car turned off while driving and had to be towing. Service shop said alternator bad, so it was changed. The next day after install, check engine light plus stability control light plus Cruse control light turned on. Took back to Service Center and they said scan shows bad catalytic converter? Car runs fine with these lights on! Does this seem odd?
scan shows bad catalytic converter?
What specific code(s) did they find? There is no code for "bad catalytic converter", only codes for conditions that exist which can affect converter efficiency. Although a bad converter is possible there are other possible causes for such codes.
Catalytic converters are designed for the lifetime of the vehicle in question. They don't "run out". My 1999 Ranger has 294k miles on it, and it's on the original catalytic converters. Any exhaust leaks, etc can cause erroneous reads. It's all based on oxygen sensors. The oxygen sensors themselves could also be bad. You really should troubleshoot before spending money on new catalytic converters, they cost an absolute fortune and it's likely to not fix your problem.
Here's Scotty diagnosing "bad catalytic converter" (sic) code and finding that the problem is not the converter:
I watched that video yesterday and didn't even think about it, haha.
Scotty says it does seem odd
