hello once again members. Sadly I had no other option as I cant find me self any shop here that does after market catalytic converters nor anyone in my country that sell them. I did not even want to repair the blown one as it probably was clogged after 230 000km now. (I did inspect all of them after removal and cant see any dirt in them) I did however see if I could buy it separately from Merc however they sell the whole exhaust for the left and right bank separately. So its the primary cat with pipe to the secondary cat that joins into the Y section. They sell it just before the Y section for almost $3000
My warranty however covered me for $200 so I managed to fit straight stainless steel pipes in place of them for $280. The car runs fine I suppose compared to a blown cat. Now it sounds normal but slightly louder. I had the CEL come on after some hard driving couple times against a friend's Golf 7R. So I disconnected battery entirely and left it for a while. Came back fitted everything back and now its gone. Hopefully wont come back again. They did fit that fouler/adapter on the O2 sensors after the primary cats to distance it from the immediate gas flowing through the exhaust. So now the CEL is off and hopefully stays off. Will monitor the fuel consumption. Think it has become lighter.


Another sad thing I noticed. The guys at the exhaust shop are reputable amongst the racing scene here. BUT TO MY ASTONISHMENT, they disconnected the positive cable on my car instead of the negative
I argued with the owner of the place and he tells me its BS and he never heard of disconnecting the negative first and what not. I told him if my rear SAM unit went then there was going to be issues to resolve. Thank the Lord nothing happened. Everything worked fine. All lights and gadgets and instruments and horn and PDC, Distronic and so on.
So I don't know how you guys blow them over in the States

 

I have only ever disconnected the negative first and only ever heard of doing that. My jumper cables even have a diagram showing negative is connected last, removed first.

I would have bought a high flow aftermarket cat from ebay. If you get a tune from eurocharged they can remove the code permanently otherwise it might occasionally come back. The ghetto option is the punch the contents out of it, of course this isn't safe for your health or the environment. The last catalytic converter I took to the scrap dealer they gave me $80.

 

that is as far as good a practice from what I have learnt. Even the workshop manuals at my diesel company I work for state, to disconnect negative terminal first followed by positive and the connection procedure is reverse so as to prevent arc.


If I could, I would have shot the owner and the exhaust guy working on my car.
On a lighter note, thank the MAN above. Everything seems okay. You mention to punch the contents out? This is physically right or you mean just rape the car a bit till the contents are expelled from the exhaust? That's exactly what I was doing when it went on me.


Anyway I needta get me self some dipsticks from Ebay so when I do that then only will I have an account. As to date I have not bought anything online.


I have read on the net that one can use the spacer for the O2 sensor or lengthen the wires to the rear or midway to obtain a different reading and apparently these work as well. The first option did work but not after long did the CEL come on. Will see if it reappears after I drive the car again. If it does then I will have to get the ECU remapped or flashed here locally.




Thanks for your valuable input TW2.

 

Yep physically remove the pieces until you find a permanent solution. Of course some people do it as a performance "mod".

 

If anything I don't think I felt an increase in power. More like painful teary eyes if I stand too long at the rear yet the exhaust doesn't show any black smoke on idle however it is burning a tad richer