Catalytic Converter, Toyota Dealers not understanding warrantly

Well, I believe if your cat was indeed fried, it would not have been properly metabolizing CO and NOx 's. This *could* have made your downstream 02 sensor read higher than normal. But, your upstream O2 would be used to control the mixture, so I doubt it was running any differently.

If the downstream o2 was bad enough, it would have thrown a code for a bad converter. If they're bad, they usually smell as you have described. I doubt any related damage has occurred.

 

Only the traction battery is covered for 10yrs/150000miles in CA.
The emission is only 8yrs/80000miles for California car. The CAT is out of warranty, that is why the original owner refused to pay.

 

Hi Barry,

Regarding your question about what components have been damaged by a defective catalytic converter, the answer is "none". The only impact is that the car has been emitting more pollution into the air than necessary.

Regarding the question of warranty coverage, if your car came with the warranty book it should be a simple question to determine whether the catalytic converter was covered under warranty or not. I've attached a page from the 2007 CA warranty book that shows the catalytic converter indeed is covered for 15 years/150K miles.

Also note that in CA, hybrid vehicles are exempt from smog testing. See Section 21.075 from the following DMV registration procedures manual:
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/reg_hdbk_pdf/ch21.pdf

Please let us know the outcome; good luck on that.

 

Did you fail the SMOG test? If so it should be covered by the CA emission control system performance warranty for 15yrs/150000miles.

Does it throw a P0420 catalytic converter deficiency code and the dealer wants to replace it? Then it is difficult to say if it will be covered.

 

I think it is likely that the dealer is aware of the CA emission warrenty, but believes that you might not be aware of the warrenty. But then, I am quite cynical especially about the ethics of some dealer service personnel.

See previous commentary on ethics. However, since no smog testing is required, there isn't any proof that your car has been emitting excessive pollutants for the last 46k miles.

I agree with the others that no other components were likely damaged, but I would want to make sure that whatever condition caused the cat to fail prematurely was addressed, so that it doesn't affect the replacement cat. They should check to verify that the engine control system is working correctly and that an overly rich mixture isn't burning out the cat.

I recall from another thread that doing an injection cleaning service incorrectly may cause the cat to fail prematurely. Perhaps this is what happened to your car. It would be interesting if you have the previous service records to see if an injector cleaning service was performed prior to 87k miles.

 

From driveclean.ca.gov:
"PZEV: Partial Zero Emission Vehicle PZEVs meet SULEV tailpipe emission standards have zero evaporative emissions and a 15 year / 150000 mile warranty. No evaporative emissions means that they have fewer emissions while being driven than a typical gasoline car has while just sitting. AT PZEV: Advanced Technology PZEVs AT PZEVs meet the PZEV requirements and have additional ZEV-like characteristics. A dedicated compressed natural gas vehicle or a hybrid vehicle with engine emissions that meet the PZEV standards would be an AT PZEV."

 

My vehicles in the past, I've simply cut out the old one and welded an aftermarket converter of comparable size in its place with absolutely no problems for about 100.00 bucks.....

I wonder if the prius is too sensitive and would show alarms for such a fix?

 

Dealers are often unaware of unusual aspects of warranties like this. My Tundra had a Toyota special extended warranty for the exhaust manifolds as part of O2 sensor work. The dealer was unaware of it, but I stumbled across it online. He had trouble finding it until I gave him the number on it. He had no motivation to dodge the warranty work. It was win-win for both of us because they wanted the work and my truck was throwing codes for the O2. My VIN's O2 sensors had issues, I had already had one set of work done on them years before under warranty...as it turns out only about a month before Toyota made a second revision and added the exhaust manifolds to the mix (since the O2 sensors were becoming welded to the manifolds.)

And then there are other dealers like the one in Albany, Georgia that lied about multiple aspects of a rear end repair. They also failed to back their own warranty when the parts they installed failed. Basically, every time I talked to them they lied. (Stay away from the crooked Toyota dealership in Albany.)

 

Thank you so much for this thread. I had my catalytic converter replaced for free today! I have a 2006 Prius and my system engine light turned on at around 99k. I've brought it to at least 3 different Toyota dealerships in California and all of them quoted me with $1,800 for just the catalytic converter. I was so close to selling my car and lose value on it. One Toyota dealership quoted me for $6k to buy the car. True, you may never need to replace a blown out CAT, but you'll lose value on your car if you decide to sell it.

Everything that was detailed on this thread is accurate and the links are very helpful proof for claiming your warranty against all emission parts (including labor) for hybrid vehicles (PZEV) in the state of California. The most helpful link, driveclean.ca.gov shows that hybrid vehicles in the state of California is covered for 15/150,000 miles. Wikipedia confirms that it is only in California where the Prius is categorized as PZEV.

I spoke to the service manager at my local Toyota dealership to setup my appointment a week ago. He was careful to schedule anything at first and had to call me back since he had to double check on the warranty information. He called me back immediately (within 10 mins.) acknowledging the warranty and scheduled an service appointment with me.

The dealership will naturally diagnose the car first just to double check especially if you did not have the original diagnosis there, but the fee for the diagnosis check is free if the light in fact is pointing to the cat converter. The replacement part is new since I believe it would be illegal for them to attach a used part. California is strict with their emissions control.

The only trouble I had in this process of getting my catalytic converter replaced is when I came to the dealership and the service guy who checked me in told me that they may not have the part. It kind of ticked me off since I told them what was wrong with my car a week before and also the reason for my appointment. The guy was either doubting me the entire time asking me questions like "Why didn't you have it fixed before" OR was just looking after the best interest of the dealership and save on costs against warrantied work. There's no way around it however, my system check engine light indicates my cat converter is out and the replacement is covered under warranty.

If you are not certain that your cat converter is the problem, I'd suggest going to Pep Boys to get a free diagnostic test versus paying the $160+ at Toyota. Have Pep Boys pull out the code they see. Pep Boys will also let you know what the code is pertaining to. The code that was pulled out of my car is: P0420. The diagnostic tool can also be bought at Costco for about $50. Remember that the "yellow" system check engine light can be diagnosed, but the "red" triangular light with an exclamation mark can only be properly diagnosed by Toyota because they have the proper diagnostic tools for this type of warning.

 

Well if mine goes out.. I"m putting in a 100.00 aftermarket and calling it good.

 

Mine went out, which is why I found this forum actually, 120,000 miles, 2004. Dealer called warranty department who said it wasn't covered, $2,500 to me. I called Toyota corporate, they say it is covered and they will contact the dealer within 3 business days to clear it up.

Weird

Also weird is why would a catalytic converter go bad so early? I have taken several cars to 200k miles plus and never had one go bad. So to have one go bad at 120k miles seems weird to me, especially on a car that doesn't run the engine 20% of the time. Then I see soo many postings about others having them go bad, it all strikes me as very strange. On mine, I did not have any other error codes besides the P20 whatever code (I own a code reader).

 

If you think that's bad, look at the Honda hybrids at Advanced Vehicle Testing Activity - Hybrid Electric Vehicles which have had their cats die earlier.

 

It may be one of the O2 sensors that has gone bad. You have P0420 yes? There have also been stories of cat failures after getting fuel injectors cleaned. In spite of what you may read here, it is not a common problem.

What sort of services have you had done to your car in the past year or so?

 

I believe allot of these Cat. problems a caused by people adding additives to the gas? Hal

 

Light bulbs don't all fail at the same number of hours, a catalytic converter is much more complex than a light bulb.

 

Yesterday afternoon, after I posted this, dealer got paperwork from corporate. Call me, tell it isn't covered, that the paperwork corporate sent over was for the hybrid power converter/inverter, not the catalytic converter. Now I know I said Catalytic Converter to guy I spoke to at corporate, the only question is if he screwed up and saw the word converter and said to himself "a converter is a converter" and mispoke when he told me it was covered.
I called corporate back, they are supposed to be looking into it, but the person I spoke to that time said no, the catalytic converter would not be covered under warranty, because I was over the 80,000 miles mark. Ridiculous, how can you have an emmissions system warranty that does not cover the catalytic converter, which is a critical part of the emissions system.

 

Yeah, I am thinking of ordering the two O2 sensors today from Amazon (a lot cheaper than the auto parts stores, a LOT) and starting with that. Yes it is the P0420 error, plus my gas mileage has been crap for a couple of months. Error light came on about 6 or 7 weeks ago, thought I justforgot to tighten the gas cap. Tightened it, light went off a couple days latter. Then came on again for a few days, thought I just had a bad gas cap maybe. Or the fact that the little flapper valve in the fuel tank neck had recently dissapeared. Knowing I was coming up on my 120,000 mile service, I didn't give it too much thought, figured I would have them check the cap when I had it serviced. Light was lit for about a week, but was out when I dropped it off 2 weeks ago, and they couldn't pull the code but pressure test of gas system went fine. Then last week light came on again, figuring it was gas cap I ignored it till the weekend, when I pulled out my code reader and got the P0420 error code, looked up the code and said "ahhh, crap". But next day light went out, so didn't take it in. Wednesday night it came on when I was driving home, so dropped it off at the dealer for confirmation of what I was seeing and figuring it had to be covered under warranty.

for recent services, just had the 120k check done as I said, but the light came on before that. Prior to that, I don't think it had been the shop in over a year, as I do the minor services myself instead of having the dealer do them. And when I do use the dealer, I print out a copy of the Toyota recommended services and don't do anything extra. So no "fuel injection" cleaning service has ever been done. Once every other oil change, I throw in a bottle of Chevron Techron, but I have been using that for years with no ill effects. Probly does nothing but make me feel better.

But really, I am surprised how many people have posted problems wiht their catalytic converter. It just doesn't make sense to me. I am no mechanic certainly, but a couple things strike me as odd.

1. Catalytic converters just don't fail that often. Hardly ever really.
2. We have a car with an engine that is specifically designed and tuned to be as efficient as possible and have very low emmissions. So the idea that we would clog a well designed, engineered and built catalytic converter strikes me as odd.
3. The ICE isn't even running for maybe 20% of our driving, logically that should extend the life of the CC even longer.
4. When stopped, where normally the ICE is under no load and thus may run its dirtiest, the ICE in our cars actually usually turns off. So not a lot of idle time on the engines.

Just doesn't make sense to me.
And then not to cover it under the "emissions system warranty?"

:yell:

 

Be forewarned, the forward O2 sensor (A/F sensor) is very, very difficult to get to. It also requires a special tool. You may want to review http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...ting/89967-oxygen-sensor-collar-around-3.html

 

I rarely add anything to the gas, once in a while a bottle of Techron, but even that I haven't done, I don't think, in the last year as I keep forgetting to buy it at Costco. My last car was a Civic, took to 180,000 miles and was real good about doing the Techron every oil change, never a problem. My wife's current car only has 40,000 miles, but before that we had a Camry we took to 238,000 miles, and then is also when I was more reliable about doing the Techron every oil change (cause we didn't have kids then, had more time to focus on stuff like that). It still had the original cat when we traded it in.