Catalytic converters replaced 3 times

[paulo]

I have a 98 S320. The catalytic convereters have been chaged twice: once in Feb 2002, once in dec 2002 and now, 3 months later, they need changing again. The car is well kept and has only 45000 miles. My question is are converters under guarantee? I thought a guarantee was valid up to 100,000km, but I have been charged in each case. This is really getting annoying. any help, advice, would be really appreciated.

Paulo

 

[piestore]

kats

Hi

There have been problems with kats breaking up and making a noise, but assuming you car is not an import you would have 3 years unlimited mileage warrenty (which ever comes first). You would have to pay for the first replacement as the vehicle would have been out of warrenty but you would then have 1 year parts warrenty which should cover the second replacment this would also apply to the latest failure assuming that it was the same kat that failed each time.

You do need to be sure which kats were replaced and when as you have four of them. Have you replaced each one once?????

On such a low mileage car ask the dealer to make a good will claim you may get a contribution

 

[grober]

cats??

You dont say what reasons were given for cat replacement by your dealer.Mechanical failure, emission levels ??? Cats should not fail so quickly. Your fuel system didnt get any leaded fuel in it in the past, did it. If so needs to be totally cleaned out. Even a small amount of lead in the fuel will poison the surface catalysts making the unit non functional. any situation where a large amount of unburnt fuel accumulates in the cat and subsequently ignites e.g. fuel system out of adjustment, tow/bump start can also damage the unit. I would go back to your garage and get them to check this out. There is no sense in continuing cat replacement without tracing the cause of premature failure. Good luck.

 

[Koolvin]

I have had enough with replacing cats, I have seen so many MB's that have needed em replaced 600 a pop is not funny and 400 aftermarket ones are not exactly cheap either!