how many miles til catalytic failure?

[Ron97M3]

Anybody heard of CAT failures and how many miles are likely?

What are the symptoms of the failure?

[123456789123456]

Abused out of tune car last maybe 50,000. Normal 100,000 and a well take care of car can go 150,000+ or life of vehicle.

Signs of falure:
1. OBD2 code P0420 - down stream o2 sensor detected the converter is not effecient.
2. Whistle sound when you excellerate hard. Clogged
3. General loss of performance.

Almost always a OBD2 car will throw a code if the converter is bad

[drtweak1992325i]

Well im not sure if my cats have been changed out or not...if they havent been then i'm going on 227k if they are stock...but i'm sure they were changed at one point...All i know is that i barely passed smog this year so i'm gonna have to get new ones by the next time i get it smoged...

[sKunkman]

I've been driving with a CEL on for the past two years (~40k miles). The code is related to the secondary air pump, so my car runs rich temporarily when the car is cold. Hasn't been an issue from what I can tell.

[95325i]

I thought the cats should last as long as the car..

I had a stock cat on my Z24 with 200K and i replaced it only because the piping leading to it was rusting.

[drtweak1992325i]

Yea my dad's VW has about 500k on it and he just replaced the cats...but they do wear out...just most cars (that aren't maintained properly) never make it to the end life of the cats to begin with...

[fiveayam]

I may have to replace the cats on mine-105k.

[Danny318]

I never heard of one wearing out. We've had many cars go 150k+ with no cat problems. The pipe itself might rust out or what ever before the cat dies.
Actually thats whats happening on my car right now. I'm trying to pull the damn pipe to get it welded up.

[drtweak1992325i]

they do wear out. the cats themself arent made of metal in side is a ceramic material. so if it heats up and cools so many times it will crack and become weak and slowly fall apart. but most should last for 200k at least if maintained properly