FIESTA CATALYTIC MOT FAIL

[mike 109444]

Daughter put her 53 plate Fiesta in for MOT and it had failed. Brakes, light, speedo sensor and high CO2 emissions. Garage said needs new cat at £300. I have done the brakes + light + speedo but no time to do cat and said to daughter to get garage to do cat. She took it in today and when they made a start on it they said "it's all rotten and would need engine out to get it sorted £900 for all the work.
Now from what I had seen on net the cat is attached (or part of ?) the exhaust manifold so all I can think is "rotten" would be the studs on the manifold or is there something else ???
The info came via the wife (not a driver!) and I am not back in Bristol till tomorrow but would like to know what he could be reffering to ? as the rest of car is good (chassis etc)

 

[julianthegypsy]

If it's amuything like my old peugeot 206, the cat is on the bottom of the exhaust manifold. It can be a pig to get the bolts undone due to the repeated heating and cooling, but my friendly garage man charged me about £120 notwithstanding, and he put a good quality cat in too, not an ebay cheapie.

 

[Rocketman]

I think he is referring to the holiday he wants to go on.

 

[mike 109444]

Lost me there RM
Yes it is the type that is part of manifold
What i dont know is what else is"rotten" as the exaulst is ok and what ive seen on web they come with sensors

 

[Rocketman]

He will be paying for the holiday with the £900.

Sounds expensive to me.

Edit - On old cars I would think carefully about putting a good quality cat on, it can be a expensive experience. Only something minor needs to go out of kilt (sensor failure) and the engine puts out a load of unburnt vapours and the cat is fried

 

[johnik]

yup,cat is part of the manifold but they aint £300,if all the nuts are rusted/eroded away it,s a simple job to remove the head ,cut the studs and use stud extractor on the stubs,you will prob have to renew them anyhow.

 

[hotrodder]

Mike, can you post all of the emissions results. Some places love condemning cats for every emissions fail regardless of whether the cat is at fault or not. A 53 plate would make it new enough to fall under the '103R type approval' for replacement cats which eliminates properly cheap/nasty replacements

 

[mike 109444]

Mike, can you post all of the emissions results. Some places love condemning cats for every emissions fail regardless of whether the cat is at fault or not. A 53 plate would make it new enough to fall under the '103R type approval' for replacement cats which eliminates properly cheap/nasty replacements

Don't have the paper work with me (working away!)
Did see mention on web about the 103R type approval.
Much as Johnik said I would have thought rusted nuts/studs = head off not the engine out that they were talking of.

 

[pondy]

I'm guessing this is a zetec petrol, 1.25l etc? I have done a hand full of these and never had an issue with getting the manifold bolts out, can even recall any being that rusty. the heat shiel. Covering the top of it on the other hand I have had to cut heads of the tiny bolts. From some one who works on Ford's if I was In the situation with rounded or seized bolts which could not remove in place I would rather drop the engine. Take it out the bottom with gearbox attached. its a simple car and won't take much to drop it out and back in, its only Labour instead of head off, gaskets, head bolts and timing belt etc which would take longer to do. I think you would stuggle for room to take the head off with manifold still attached as the bottom of the cat the exhaust bends back with an extra foot of pipe, can't see it clearing the bulk head

 

[the snooper]

sounds like a scam to me, simply because a woman took it in they think they can get one over, ive seen garages do it, not to say there are not any honest garages but for sure there are bent garages about get it home and do it yourself

 

[SmartWerks]

Always take the car for a hard drive be for mot, if cat isn't upto temp it will fail. You know when a cat fails as the gubbins make there presence know!

 

[Rocketman]

A cat has failed when no matter how hot the engine/cat gets it won't pass the emissions test.

 

[T0rnado69]

my nephew's girlfriend had same proberly with her corsa.

fail MOT on a big list of stuff. and they quoted £500 to fix all that.

and said also Exhaust emissions are no good because manifold has a crack in it.
right near the sensor and it also had a cat on it.

they tried to undo the manifold bolts and rounded a few off.
said engine would have to be taken out to get at them as they will proberly snap the studs.

and quoted another £550 to fix that....

i managed to get the manifold off with removing the engine.
didn't snap any studs, though i damaged the thread on 3 of them.
i used die grinder with carbide burr and cut through the top of the nuts i couldn't undo with a socket.
once through they came off easy.
then wound the studs out with mole grips on them.

then just replaced them all with new studs and copper nuts i got from GM

got a third party manifold, that was about £125. as main dealer was like £600
couldn't get the old sensor out the manifold it was rock solid.
even tried oxy/propane torch.

had to buy new sensor in the end from euro parts.

did the whole lot ,including the big list of stuff for about £550.

where garage wanted £1050....

i do think some garages try it on when they see a female.

 

[hotrodder]

https://www.google.co.uk/search?biw...msedr...0...1c.1.64.serp..1.4.325.qxIq0qlVrHw The first four hits after the shopping links explain

There are soooooo many things that can cause an emissions fail that lazy/ignorant/unscrupulous testors will blame on the cat regardless of whether it's working or not. As said it can be as simple as the car not being upto temp properly. If something is actually wrong throwing a new cat on is addressing the symptoms not the cause and won't do the new cat any good in the long term. Especially cheaper examples

FWIW the cat on my daily driver is the one it left the factory with 23 years and 212k miles ago, emissons results from the last MOT...



A few years previously it failed spectacularly on CO, not because the cat was knackered but because the ecu was overfuelling; turned out it was being lied to by the coolant temp sensor. A new OE quality cat (Bosal etc) would've cost around £800, double that from MB while. A cheap/nasty pattern one would've never last as long and cost a chunk more than a new temp sensor. Maybe i got lucky, maybe the metal substrate cats used back then are a lot tougher than modern tat but either way the origional 23 year old cat bounced back from an attempted drowning is still working although the fast idle results in the pic of the last MOT emissions hints at a different (and mild) fault the car had at the time. 1000 internets to anyone that can spot it

 

[the snooper]

did he show you the lambda's reading showing the mixture was correct and that it was 100% cat failure

 

[julianthegypsy]

On a side note, I've had a couple of cats fail on me on a couple of cars and both times it has let me know by gradually getting slower, refusing to accelerate and going slower when you put your foot down...

 

[the snooper]

On a side note, I've had a couple of cats fail on me on a couple of cars and both times it has let me know by gradually getting slower, refusing to accelerate and going slower when you put your foot down...

but that will be due to the collapse of the internals, I had a cat fail due to the head gasket going, as soon as antifreeze hits the cat its time to buy a new one

 

[doubleboost]

Never had a manifold nut that would not come off once it was glowing red hot

 

[mike 109444]

Her engine warning light has been on for some time I had put this down to a failing speedo sensor as her speedo was flicking and dropping from time to time. Have now changed that (what a pain to do!) Headache with this and many modern cars is the lack of room to work on them. I am (time permitting) able to do most jobs on a car but being able to get at it is another matter
Can't recall exactly what was on the paperwork.

 

[the snooper]

not sure if EML would throw up a speedo sensor never had one go, have you had a diagnostic plugged in to see what fault code was stored ?