Hey Scotty....
Had the catalytic converter replaced on my old Jeep and the exhaust shop refused to give me back the original cat. Told me it was against some law in my sate MA for them to give me back the original Cat, is this true?
My 2000 Jeep Cherokee Sport 4.0 automatic 128k miles had the engine light on throwing a P0432 code (Main Catalytic Efficiency Below Threshold Bank 2. Severity 2 of 3, Repair Immediately). This model came with the dual mini cats (pre cats) system for California emissions as they all did after February of 2000. Had one mechanic try to replace an O2 sensor and do a cheap weld patch at the Y joint where it was cracked upon visual inspection. That worked for a bit but the engine light and codes kept coming back. Finally decided to go to a speciality exhaust shop and not only did it cost $1600 for the new Cats and o2 sensors, they also refused to give me back the original parts. They loosely referenced some MA (my state) law about the EPA or something that they are not allowed to give used catalytic converters back to the customer and he was very adamant about it. He said they have to keep used cats stored on their site for like 15 days before properly disposing of them or something to that effect. Again, this was a dual cat system so I was looking forward to getting a pretty penny selling them to a cat scrapper but now I feel like the shop basically robbed me of the old parts to increase their profits. I mean I brought a big card board box in the trunk and asked him for the olds cats before he even quoted me the job, it's not like I asked him about it at the last minute when I picked up the Jeep. Can you please share anything you may know about this? Also after the $1600 dual cat/02s replacement the engine light and code is still there, can it take like the first 100 miles of driving for the code to go away? please help! I'm not the smartest person when it comes to the codes.
Thanks a million!
{black}:laughingoutloud:
Although the Jeep 4.0 is a fine engine, the later ones are saddled with a complex and expensive emission system with pre-cats as you describe. 15-20 years later those systems are failing and as you discovered they cost a small fortune to fix. (Earlier examples just have a simple converter underneath that is relatively cheap and easy to replace.)
I would have asked the shop to produce a copy of this "law" that says they cannot return your old parts and if they failed to do so called the police on them for theft. It's pretty likely they plan to turn the old cats in to a recycler for $$$.
If the shop did the job properly they should have cleared the codes and made sure they didn't come back. They also should have used OEM sensors and not cheap Chinese knockoffs.
Their story sounds like a lot of BS to me.
BS Some cats bring about 200 bucks at a scrap yard. Every shop loves deletes and cat replacements because the general publicn doesnt want them back and they got to the salvage yards. $1000s of dollars a year at a busy shop maybe even $10,000s
I don't think anybody can just confiscate something that you own. I could understand if they BOUGHT it from you, or applied the value towards the new parts. But this sure sounds a lot like the shop is selling old cats out the back door.
