Hey Scotty, I have a 2010 Toyota Corolla LE automatic transmission with 120k miles. I got my car at 89k miles. I am a DoorDash/Uber driver. And stupidly for the first 25k I had the car I didn’t do an oil change. I am on top of that now, doing that myself when necessary. But I was driving my car one day on the highway and my car jerked and turned the check engine, traction control, and vsc off flashing. I hooked up my coworkers obd because I am an up and coming hvac technician, and it said low catalyst something. Couldn’t quite remember. Coworkers says it’s an oxygen sensor, and all my mechanic shops near me in NC are too busy or non reliable. My car is still running fine for the most part but I noticed when I try to send fuel to the engine a little quick sometimes it jerks my car, not sure if this reaction is due to my sensors possibly being out. Can I get a professional opinion?
Well catalyst can be a couple of things, Catalytic Converter inefficient, which you can ignore unless your state does smog testing, Sensors etc... if you can get the code number to us we can help you out more. Any of these will cause the engine to run rich or lean, be a little funky on acceleration. If your getting hard jerks you may also have a motor/tranny mount that’s bad.
P0420 is the code sir. I have tried to run a can of seafoam through my system to maybe clean my cat, but my code still popped back up.
Here's some more diagnostic info - you may need to get this hooked up to a higher-level scanner
https://repairpal.com/obd-ii-code-p0420
Cat could be clogging up. You can drill a small hole in front of it, about 1/4” see if it gets better. If it does your cats clogged and needs replacing. If it doesn’t you can plug the hole with jb weld and a sheet metal screw.
It would be beneficial to get the code that the reader showed. Pxxxx? The O2 sensor (before the cat) is more accurately a air/fuel ratio sensor. So it could be something as simple as changing the air filter, plugs, and cleaning the stuff Scotty shows in the 1st video. It could also be a faulty O2 sensor (2nd video). But without the code, anything else would be an educated guess. Finding a good mechanic depends on where in NC, you are.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWCKvU2FmDc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYjaZXq3c_o
P0420 is the code. I have redone the scan and it still came back on. My coworkers helped me out by running a can of sea foam to maybe clean out my cat, but like I said my code still popped up.
Have you checked your fuel filter?
