Woes of a catalytic converter

[survient]

Just a heads up for other owners who run into this. Took the van into the shop for a check engine light, turned out to be a clogged catalytic converter, was quoted around $1500 to have the converter and pre-converter swapped.

 

Had a friend show me:

 

https://www.epa.gov/transportation-air-pollution-and-climate-change/frequent-questions-related-transportation-air

 

which basically says that the clear air act has a mandate requiring manufacturers to cover warranty of "Specified major emission control components" including catalytic converters up to 8 years or 80000 miles, whichever comes first. A key wording on this mandate is that it only applies to "light-duty" vehicles which is classified by the EPA as anything having a gross vehicle weight rating of 8500 lbs or less. Even the V6 NV 1500 has a gvwr of 8550 lbs so pretty much any of the HD lineup is not covered even though certain Titan models are. Fun times.

[radin2son]

Have you confirmed this with the dealer? Or contacted commercial customer services? Why put it in the manual if it doesn’t apply?

 

I wonder what EPA says about medium to heavy duty trucks. There has to be some standard.

[survient]

Have you confirmed this with the dealer? Or contacted commercial customer services? Why put it in the manual if it doesn’t apply?

 

I wonder what EPA says about medium to heavy duty trucks. There has to be some standard.

 

I contacted both the dealer and commercial customer services. There was a lot of back and forth with finger pointing, customer service essentially said "the onus falls on the dealer", and the dealer clarified the whole EPA weight classification. Each time they checked "the system" they couldn't find any warranty for my specific vehicle(2012 3500 HD S) where this was covered.

 

That said after making a small trek recently totaling 400 miles, the check engine light has gone out. I'm taking it to my local shop this week to validate the status(yes I can check the OBD-II myself but I've got a good relationship with my shop) so we'll see what's up, hopefully good news.

[andy_george]

How many miles on your van?

[radin2son]

Thanks for pursuing this the way you have. Our 2012 just hit 74,000 miles, so we are expecting nagging issues to come up. $1500 is more than nagging...

 

Hope it was sensor glitch. On this last trip, we went from 2500’ to 8000’ when the TPMS warning came on and showed 0 psi in one of the rear tires. As quickly as it appeared it went away. When I later checked, psi was where it should be all around.

 

Keep us posted.

[survient]

How many miles on your van?

76483

[andy_george]

Ok, if it was much lower I was gonna guess that a clogged converter would be pretty unlikely. But at the mileage it’s a possibility, but my guess it’s that it’s a bad sensor like Rad says. Good work, keep us updated.

[PaulNV]

Have you been able to identify whether it's a bad sensor or did you have to change catalytic converter?