First off, I'm newbie, so if this is an easy question and has been answered a hundred times, please answer it once more.

My wife's car is an '03 Accord and in the last few months I've had the CAT and O2 sensors replaced, but the check engine light keeps coming back on.
She originally took it to Honda and they wanted $1200 just to replace the CAT. So, I took it to my guy and he put one in for half that.
It's about the same story with the O2 sensors.

I know it keeps throwing the CAT code and not something else.

Is it possible that the aftermarket parts are what's causing it to keep throwing the code?

And is there anything I can do about it short of spending a ton of money on OEM parts?
Thanks.

 

How many miles? You do know that a factory cat has a 8year/80K warranty right. And yes your aftermarket junk cat will likely always set codes since they are never as high quality as oem. What started this? What was the original code for the cat? Who originally diagnosed it as needing one?

 

It's got 120,000 miles on it and this all started about 10,000 miles ago.
The engine light came on and my wife took it to Honda. It threw a P0420 code and they told her $1200 for the CAT. That's when I had the aftermarket one put in.

The last trip to Honda showed the same code. The repair bill also notes that the CAT also has a small leak, but does not specify where. I'll call Honda Monday and find out.

I'm hoping I can have the leak welded up and that will fix it, but you say that aftermarket CATs will throw codes.
Any advice besides spending the $1200?

Thanks.

 

the non-factory cats do not work worth a bean...........I had a 99 and a 98 accord v6 with same code the gus did not want to pay the money to use Honda parts, we installed after market cat but Honda o2 sensor , ,, after 2-3 months the same code would return on both cars , we replaced the cats 3 different times even using a different brand name cat but same issue was coming up, code p0420

we installed the Honda cat and code has not come back since almost 2 years now ..After market cats do not seem to do the job

I totally agree with you ,the price for the cat from Honda is ridiculous ,

 

What's the downside if I don't put in a Honda CAT besides 1) not knowing when another non-related code is thrown and 2) my wife ******* about the light always being on.

No Bad Words My Friend

 

And I agree with DesertHonda also, most all of the dealer parts cost way too much but
as Ive said before, you have too suck it up and by the way, there's always the salvage yards to buy some of those parts from the smashed up cars that get deposited in there daily...

WheelBrokerAng

 

Hey I need to revive this thread because the OP sounds a lot like my situation. I have an 03 Accord with about 150K on it. Within the last year I replaced the upstream and downstream O2 sensors and last night the OBD through out a P0420 code (Cat. Converter below threshold).

Anyway, we seem to be sinking a lot of money into this Accord in the past 18 months and this CAT situation doesn't seem like a cheap fix. Is it? We've been debating getting a new car.

We put a ton of mileage on this Accord between March and beginning of December, is there any safety concerns if we don't get the CAT fixed? Does it have an effect on fuel efficiency? If so, how much?