[Colossus]

Hi Guys

Car is in for an annual service and dealer has finally managed to look at the car (seperate issue but not really happy with service level I have received) and has come back with a huge list of items needing attention, the most significant being that the L/H cat is faulty and needs to be replaced. They are happy to do this for £2250 which strikes me as expensive given that the labour involved can't be huge and Eurospares sell the part for £1200! Not sure if cats have a finite life but car is 5 years old and 26k miles but I would have expected them to last longer than that. Also cats are excluded from the extended 3rd party warranty I have, which seems to be normal for these policies, so that doesn't help either. Dealer take was that they can fail for all manner of reasons, speed bumps, water hitting a hot cat etc etc. Not entirely convinced but suspect I will not get any help from them.

Was then thinking about other options other than simply replacing the faulty cat such as full de-cat but suspect it would not pass the annual emissions test as part of the MOT and I didn't really want to make it significantly louder which I suspect would be a by product. The car is a daily driver and I do also use it for long trips and additional noise would detract from the useability. Also wonder if there would be other issues that might start to effect the ECU etc without them there. Assumed this would be cheepest option but probably not the most practical.

Thought then turned to free flow/sports cats which should still pass emissions but give a better respone. I really have no knowledge of these and don't know if you also have ECU issues or whether the car would effectively not notice. Advice would be gratefully received.

If there is anything I have not considered would be happy to hear about it otherwise any advice gratefully received.

Cheers

Carl

 

[TravisJ]

I was getting the "slow down" light and fear one or both of my cats had gone bad. Car went to the shop today so I don't know if I need to replace cats yet. Anyway, this is what FD had to say...

Clicky

I sent a PM to Formula Dynamics to see what their weld-in high flow cats costs but haven't heard back yet.



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[Frankie P]

I may be wrong, but....

Didn't a recent post reflect that the "emissions" system was covered by the factory warranty for a much longer period?

 

[TravisJ]

Didn't a recent post reflect that the "emissions" system was covered by the factory warranty for a much longer period?

US cars have an 8 year/80K mile emissions warranty. The original poster is based out of the UK.

According to some, it is very hard, albeit not impossible, to get Maserati NA to replace CCs on US cars. I understand Maserati NA will use any excuse they can (dents, moisture, et al) to say the failure was not due to manufacturer defect.



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[BeeYouZeeZee]

US cars have an 8 year/80K mile emissions warranty. The original poster is based out of the UK.

According to some, it is very hard, albeit not impossible, to get Maserati NA to replace CCs on US cars. I understand Maserati NA will use any excuse they can (dents, moisture, et al) to say the failure was not due to manufacturer defect.

So true! I raised a ruckus with MNA directly after Park Place told me my pre-cats had been purposely "cleaned out" by someone. MNA finally sent an expert over to PP and they concluded they broke up and replaced both. The thing about US spec pre-cats is they are part of the exhaust manifold and can't simply be replaced. It's highly unusual for the post-cats to fail.

There are a few options to fix a cat that is out of warranty.

1. Have new ones installed $$$$$$
2. Clean the debris out of the bad one and drive that way (will throw a CEL and not pass emission test)
3. Use a "O2 emulator" on the downstream O2 sensor after the pre-cat (will turn off CEL and pass emissions. ILLEGAL!!!!!)
4. have the exhaust just past the post-cat drilled and tapped and move the downstream O2 sensor down there. This may be technically legal since both O2 sensors are installed and emission is within acceptable levels. However it IS modifying the factory set up.

It's a tough one! These cats are known to breakup and I believe Maserati is aware of it. Whoever made the pre-cats part of the exhaust manifold should be shot!

 

[doodlebug]

Hey Carl

Check that Eurospares is quoting for the correct part. Their website was wrong as the previous owner of my '03 coupe found out to his expense (don't know if they've fixed it yet). For some reason, the LH catalyst is a lot more expensive - around £3k from memory. ES supplied the wrong one but they agreed to split the cost difference.

 

[TravisJ]

It sounds like Formula Dynamics has some weld-in high flow cats for under $1K US. If my cats go bad, I will definitely go that route.



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[Colossus]

Thanks for all the replies guys, appreciated. I think the way forward is to try and get some sport cats fitted, trouble is there is not much in the way of supply out there. I have spoken to a fabricator who has made them for Maseratis before and they do alot of work supplying their own exhaust systems but have never heard of them. I have also spoken to Larini who are in the process of developing some for the Maserati and I may be able to benefit from that process, we are going to talk again on Monday.

Will let you know how I get on but the message I am getting back is that there is quite a bit of power to be released by having a sports cat and the cost is likely to be cheaper than replacing one standard Maserati cat - thats a no brainer to me!

Cheers

Carl

 

[GrndLkNatv]

Jeff @ Formula Dynamics

has cat's for our cars... Have you contacted him? Jeff can you pitch in here??? I have a California car here in Colorado and after talking with the tech at FoD I have found I can get another 15hp just removing the pre-cats and that I will still pass Colorado emissions without a problem as California law basically strangles cars with excess...

 

[FormulaDynamics]

Yes, we have Hi-Flow cats in stock.

Scenario #1, your precats ( in the header ) have failed. This is VERY common. You may decide to hollow them out as they are only used for warmup emissions. The secondard or main cats will probably be clogged with debris from the precats breakup. You could then replace those with our high flow cats. You'll pickup at least 15hp from this setup in our experience. Even if your secondary or main cats still work, they will be impeded by the debris from your primary cats failing, they need to be replaced, it will cause many other problems.

Scenario #2, you just want to have better performance and replace your main cats.

If you've had a cats failure, this is the way to go. They are a significantly better product than the stock products and much less expensive.

Cost is $850 for the set of (2), labor should be approx $150. We also have a high performance chip tune for this setup.

 

[jaev]

Jeff, will the car still pass California emissions without the precats and with the high flow main cats?

 

[FormulaDynamics]

Jeff, will the car still pass California emissions without the precats and with the high flow main cats?

It should still pass your emmissions test in California assuming everything else on your car is correct. These are completely functional catalytic converters.