Catalytic Converter Hell!

[sgtbob]

Well, i posted here a month or so ago, about the cat that went on my W202 C230K. Story went that i spoke to the stealership and they quoted me £900 odd, and charged me £60 for the privilage of telling me!! Got other quotes from independant garages aswell as independant merc places in the NW. I ended up going to a local trusted garage we have used a s a family for a while and got the guy to order a new cat. The one he took off was a twin cat, and he told me the parts company he uses ordered another twin cat for me. It ended up arriving as a single cat, but as i needed the car pdq, i told him to install it after i researched it a bit and found that a single cat would suffice.

That first cat failed about a month after, so had another one installed under warranty and again it subsequently failed 2 weeks after. They provided another one under warranty and that one failed a week after.

So on friday i took it back in, and the garage said that it seems like a deeper problem, and sent the car off to a company to get it on a rolling road and do some engine tests/diagnostics etc. Was told on friday evening that the Air Mass/Flow sensro had gone and was causing the gasses to burn hotter thus potentially melting the ceramic block in the cat. So told them to replace the Air Flow sensor and i (personally) ordered off the web, a twin replacement cat, (specifically for the w202).

So a month or so down the line and significantly less well off, i will hopefully by the end of the week have a fixed and working car!

Just wondering if this sounds correct, or if im being spun lies, or if it has happend to anyone else, or just your thoughts in general!?

Cheers.

Rob.

 

[grober]

Sounds plausible enough although your mixture problem could come from a defective LAMBDA SENSOR rather than the MAF( AIR FLOW SENSOR). Normally the faulty lambda would show up with a fault code tho, whereas the MAF often doesn't. Perhaps shows its best to get a handle on the problem before replacing expensive components.

 

[carnut]

Moral of the story....when your dealer quoted £900 to fix the fault they would ( & should) have stood by their diagnosis and that would have been the total bill. My dealer has done this in the past and I was very grateful as the total amount of time and parts far exceeded their original quote but thats all I paid

However one thing seems funny...if the dealer did the quote and presumably a star test ( £60?) then why didnt they find the lamda problem etc?

 

[Dieselman]

However one thing seems funny...if the dealer did the quote and presumably a star test ( £60?) then why didnt they find the lamda problem etc?

Maybe they did and it was all rolled into a single job cost..