jpv7774

04 LS430 140k miles on it......up to date on everything and still riding smooth as glass but my cats stink. I know Toyota's are known to have stinky cats but I am wondering at what mileage have you guys had to replace your catalytic converters??? And what is the cost to have both replaced at dealer and or decent local garage?

Thanks

2KHarrier

At first read I was going to suggest Fresh Step, for the cat pan, but then I read the rest of the title and realized where this was going.
My car has 150K on it and still running the original catylitic converters. No signs of trouble yet...

jpv7774

YA I thought I would add a little pazaz to the title. Im not sure other then the car throwing a code or dummy light when one knows they need to replace their kitty cats....ok enough with the cat stuff....so do you notice with 150k on your car the sulfur smell from time to time....especially if your blowing a little carbon out?

When the cats start to go bad does the car suffer via poor fuel mi or loss of power?

Johnhav430

Normally I believe they should last the life of the vehicle, but faulty o2 sensors can hurt them.....my Maxima is 19 y.o. on the original...I'm going to take a wild guess and say dealer might be $2,500. What gets scary is when you start seeing "not for sale or use in the state of California" on aftermarket parts. The problem is the LS430 is a 50 state car so it necessarily has cats approved for CA. Back when my maxima was made, Nissan had a fed and a Calif car. Major PITA to identify the o2 sensors because my car is a CA car...

If you don't have any codes, imho there isn't any need to think about replacements (2)

p.s. I just looked up VA emissions testing, takes less than 1 second? Any chance PA can learn from that? They get up to $100 and takes hours. Toyota charged me over $70 and I sat in a crowded lounge waiting. BMW charged $63, and gave me a loaner for 2 days. What's wrong with that picture?

https://www.rapidpass.org/VaPublic/Home/FAQ

jpv7774

Thanks for the reply....ya I get a little paranoid because my car is a garage queen and only gets driven on the weekend. Sometimes sitting is not a good thing. If you guys tell me you get the cat smell from time to time after goosing it then I assume i am fine. I think I mentioned this issue a long time a go and a few people chimed in and mentioned they has stinky cats too.

JffGRY706

do you use regular or premium? not saying it matters, just curious. some think regular is bad for cats and fuel injectors and others say not. I don't know.

jpv7774

I use only premium gas.........

nthach

You shouldn't need to replace cats unless you get a P0420 code or you bomb any state emissions testing with high HC and even so there are other reasons behind a bad cat.

Also, what gas are you using? Some brands of gas do have higher sulfur content - even though the EPA and CARB have different sets of standards. Top Tier is good, but it only establishes how much/what kind of add pack is used and OEM-mandated cleanliness standards are met.

jpv7774

I guess most often I fuel up in my neighborhood with Mobile gas.....but when on a road trip I just try to avoid the small co name gas........

BradTank

I wouldn't replace over the smell, and I'm not sure if the "smell" has anything to do with the age of the catalytic converter.

I don't want to give bad information, and it could just be a coincidence, but for my car, it seemed like the sulphur smell went down quite a bit when I replaced the spark plugs. It's still there, but it seemed like it used to completely stink up my garage and now maybe once a month I can smell a faint odor.

Htony

Tried filling up with different brand fuel?

RA40

iTrader: (6)

There is something upstream that is causing an excessive rich fuel mixture, if this is similar to the 400's. How has your gas mileage been? The engine coolant temperature sensor and or O2 are key areas to look into. The ECT does not throw code but O2' will. The cats can only take so much un-burned fuel before they do die so don't go to long.

jpv7774

Yes I am hunting a nice full tank of shell fuel in the near future.

I am kind of thinking my o2 sensors might be the culprit. With 140k on the car and most likely these are still the original o2 sensors......what mileage do they need to be repl at.....?? What would be the cost at a shop to have them replaced? I am pretty handy should I tackle my o2's?
NOTE.....I am just trying to think ahead of the game here preventative maintenance thinking.

To clarify....my cats are a 4 or 5 out of 10 on smell and this is only if I goose the car then come to a stop light....when idling at the light the cats will work up a lil stank. Normal driving little to no stank.

Already replaced the plugs very recently and the temp sensor

DaveGS4

iTrader: (2)

195k, no stink ever

nthach

ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron/Texaco/Standard, Costco, Arco, Valero and a few others are Top Tier certified - but it's the base gas that might have a touch more sulfur than usual. O2 sensors can be checked with an OBDII scan tool or app + dongle, you want to look at the live data and see if the sensors are "switching" - meaning you should see rapid fluctations between .1-.9 volt. Our cars don't use air/fuel sensors(aka wideband O2).

I say try a different brand of gas and/or take your car on a nice, long drive with some hard acceleration and a few WOT runs, maybe even an Italian tune-up to blow stuff out.