i got a 98 accord, 4cyl with about 140k and a shot catalytic converter. This is my second catalytic converter in less then six months. I had the original honda cat, blew that one. Replaced it with a Magnaflow and now this one is shot too. I cant afford a new , legit honda cat so whats the next best thing? No more magnaflow thats for sure.

Thanks for reading , any advice is appreciated
- nazar

 

do not waste any more money using non Honda cats they do not last ,,.
if you are planning on selling car anytime soon then use a non-Honda cat ..

 

I wonder if something is wrong with your car's tune?

Are you running rich or very lean?Or is the 02 running blind,dumping fuel?That wont always throw a code.

I find it hard to believe an aftermarket cat will fail in 6 months on a properly tuned and running motor.

Maybe it happens,but I have never seen it before or heard about it online with other cars Im familiar with.

 

How can I tell if my car is not tuned properly? It's always been running smoothly, not giving me any problems I get about 23-24 mpg, city and highway combined so i don't think its dumping fuel. And I do understand that after market parts are ****, but an after market cat is about 100 bucks depending on the brand. A new HONDA cat is $658.92, tax excluded (Courtesy of Honda of Madison NJ) . I cant afford that : /

 

There's some on-line places that have actual Honda parts, shop around.
slhondaparts dot com
hondaautomotiveparts dot com
manhonda dot com

 

Honda cat is $463.29 at hondaautomotiveparts.com
23-24 mpg city/hwy combined sounds terrible to me. I get 31 city/hwy combined. My car has 164k on it. I do have a manual trans, but I didn't think that would increase my MPG by that much....

 

believe it........been there done that. we had to warranty 3 cats ( non-factory,, we used different brands as well ) before we decided enough was enough and went with a factory Honda cat,,,,,,,,,try to save customer money but after 4-6 months came back with same code ,,,we used a Honda cat have not seem him in the past 2 years,,
we also had to warranty another car similar issue ( non honda cat lasted 4 months) this time we went with Honda cat on the second try ( learned from 1st lesson ) have not seen her either over 1 1/2 ..

 

Only way I know is if someone has a good scanner and observes all the reading in real time data.They can watch the 02 and the injectors pulse and all that stuff.If it all looks good,then you know the car in running in good tune.

I see you live in The Jersey area? Wow,I can understand.I used to live in NY...expensive everywhere,parts/labor rates are unreal too.I live in KY now and its way cheaper and no emissions or inspections!

 

yea i'm stuck in dirty jersey and you're right, everything here is ridiculously expensive. So judging from the responses to this thread, i'm ****ed lol? Its either dropping $600 for a honda part, or buying an aftermarket one that will last me about 6 months. I think i'll have to get an aftermarket one, i gotta pay for tuition i cant afford to drop 600 bucks lol.

thanks for the advice fellas.

 

I'm about to do the same thing.. I bought a Magnaflow and the way I figure it, I will get rid of this Accord before the warranty is up on the cat. The EGR valve was bad on mine and that is what caused mine to fail. It just took too long for the EGR to set a code so that the cat would be safe. 23-24 is not that great.. unless you are driving the wheels off it. The worst that I ever got with mine was 25 and I was delivering pizza.