Your Catalytic Converter Warranty
Monday, March 19th, 2007In this era of AirCare and emissions testing, one of the most misunderstood parts of your car is the catalytic converter, or simply ‘Cat’ for short.
The cat is usually located near the front of the engine, built into the front exhaust pipe and looks rather like a small muffler. Its job is to complete the oxidation process, or the burn process of your fuel, and turn those bad hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and nitrous oxide into simple nitrogen and carbon dioxide.
In order to carry out this process the converters are filled with three metals, palladium, rhodium and cerinium, that attack three gases, hence why the term 3-way converter, is applied.
A catalytic converter has no moving parts; it merely acts as a little Pac-Man kind of guy, eating all the bad emissions on their way by. And he can only eat so much, and he’ll be full! And when you cat is full, it will plug and restrict the flow of your exhaust and your car will drive like someone has just stuck a potato in your tailpipe. The engine seems to be working hard, but the car just goes nowhere. We have had customers thinking they have had automatic transmission problems, when the real culprit has been their converter.