I went to get a quote on getting a magnaflow installed and me and the guy got to talking and i told him that my exhaust smells kinda like fully unburnt fuel. He took a quick look at the convertor and said he thought it would be a lot hotter for how far a drove if it was bad, but he said it could go out soon if i am smelling raw fuel.

He told me to take it to mechanic shop and have them look at my coil packs and make sure my spark is where it should be.

I am wondering if there is anyway i can do this myself, or if i should have them look at it. I don't want to have to pay $250 for a new convertor if i can prevent it going out soon, by just tuning in up or something.

thanks

 

crawl underneath the truck and hit the cat...iwhen you hit it, if it makes a noise as if there were a sack of rocks in there, its probably bad.

as far as the coil packs, check them yourself. you can also get your codes read , that might help.

theres really no way to prevent a converter from going out from my understanding. WIth enough mileage, they will go out. Usually you will throw a code if it goes bad.

 

i would check that first ... also a new factory fit cat is like 800 bucks

 

Matt, I'm not sure I'd call that a an acid test of a converter's efficiency.

chadbobb, I would pull all the spark plugs and look at them. They should all be a nice light tan color if the cylinders are burning right. If you find one that smells alot like fuel or looks very different from the others, you've likely found a problem cylinder. You never want to pass large amounts of unburned fuel through your converter for any period of time because it will damage it, so get that fixed soon.

 

oh by all means, its a cheap way to see if you could have a cat problem. Not exact, but from what mechanics have told me, it generally is a good indicator since the honeycomb inside falls apart when it is bad.

 

yeah, thats what he told me, is that it will raddle if it is bad... He also said when they get bad they will be really hot really fast, and that mine didn't seem to be like that yet.

You told me to check the coil packs myself but i don't know how. I think i know what they are. Are they the three little boxes on the top left side of the engine by the spark plugs?
What do i check them for?

 

Any ideas?

Also, if i take it to have the codes read, what does that usually cost?

 

free at any autozone

 

I don't have an autozone around for 150 miles


What about buying a card reader? Will http://www.obddiagnostics.com/ that do as good of a job as if i took it to a shop? Is it worth buying? Will the codes even reveal the problem?

 

Could it just need a new oxygen sensor? Could it just need a new one behind the cat? Or before the cat? I really don't want to buy a $100 computer then a $100 sensor if i can just get one.