My brother calls me today to tell me the shop wants $2600 plus to replace all 3 cats in his wife's 2002 Escape. I was shocked to find out there is 3 cats in that system. Does that price sound about right to anyone?
Also I am wondering for that suv, Body and interior are in real good shape and it has average mileage for a vehicle for that year. With the 3 cats being bad what do you think the selling value is?
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Mike
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Seems awful strange that you would need three cat converters. I don't believe it. you can go to fordparts.com to see what a dealer would charge for parts. you can buy used exhaust headers with the cats at junk yard site car-parts.com instead of buying new. I burned up my cat, only the one next to my muffler. the two on the exhaust headers weren't damaged. the cost of that one was under $100 for an aftermarket one. my suv wouldn't run at all because the cat was burned up. I removed both ox sensors to relieve the pressure and the motor started up and ran ok proving it was only the one by the muffler that was no good.
ALSO you can see the value of your vehicle on Kelly Blue Book, www.kbb.com. After the one cat was replaced it ran fine, didn't need to replace the other two.
Last edited by daveya48187; 02-22-2012 at 09:17 AM.
Reason: additional info
The total price sounds a little inflated to me. As daveya suggested there are other sources. If you are not under California CARB rule, you may be able to get aftermarket replacements. CA limits replacements to those they have certified, and you will not pass SMOG test for license renewal with un-certified converters.
I would get a 2nd opinion and shop for other sources.
I would also check to see what caused the failure as replacing the cats will not repair the cause of failure, and cats should last the life of the vehicle.
tom
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If it is like my 03 3.0 it does have 3 cats, one built into each header and the normal inline one. The ones in the header have to be replaced with the header. The price I was quoted at NAPA was $580 for a new front header. The rear was about the same price, so $2600 is a little high. If you live in a state that does not require smog tests he might think about removing the cats all together. My exhaust guy just removed the inline cat that the guts out of the header cat stopped up, and cut the header cat out and welded a straight pipe in its place. The only downside to this is that his check engine light will stay on, but there was no change in mileage and performance on my 03. It just gave the exhaust note a little throater sound.
I forgot to add, it is likely that he only needs to replace 2 cats if that is the rout he goes. What probably happened is the one on one of the headers went out and the guts from it stopped up the inline cat down stream. The other header is probably fine, they are most likely they do not want to pull both headers off to see which one is bad, or they want to do both as a preventive measure. Do you have junk yards around there? Mine was the first Escape my exhaust man had straight piped so he was not sure what it would do, so he had me price some used ones for a plan b. Most used headers were under $100, so that might be something to look at as well.fficeffice" />>>
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