Fix Or Bin :-(

[DanLB]

Hi

We have a RAV4 5 door X reg , VVT-i i think it is , we have had it over 10 years and it has done 175k , so know the car well , the engine light came on this w/e , so have had it diagnosed , it is apparently the cat has gone and will need replacing , and the guy who diagnoses (who doesnt do the work itself) reckons on £400-500 approx to get the job done

Is this accurate and if so , is now the time to say goodbye to her :-(

Thanks

Dan

[gjnorthall]

It would be interesting to know the fault code that caused the engine light to illuminate - just to see if this aligns with an expired cat. At the sort of mileage covered - it wouldn't be surprising that the cat is at the end of it's life. It's quite a complex cat arrangement on this model and the price quoted including labour is in the right ballpark - you might get closer to £300 if you shopped around for a new cat.

Sometimes an Italian tune-up will clean-up an old cat particularly on a car that just used for local commute - and the car may still pass the MOT emissions test.

[DanLB]

I have the paperwork at home , so hopefully that will have the fault code on it , but the guy who diagnoses for us we have known many years so i do trust him

Is it a case of i could source a cat from eBay or similar and get it done labour price only?

The car is just used for me to travel 10 miles round trip a day mon-fri as well so very frustrating , could you expand on the `italian tune up` thing?

Thanks

[gjnorthall]

An Italian tune -up is a swift run up the motorway to get everything nice and hot - helps burn off deposits. Not doubting your mechanic in any way but this model has 4 Lambda sensors and the failure of one of the downstream sensors may be diagnosed as a cat failure. You can get a new cat for around £180 so with a couple of hours labour, gaskets etc - you'd be around £300 for an independent garage.

[DanLB]

Thanks , its had one of lambda sensors done a year or so back

[redlew]

An Italian tune -up is a swift run up the motorway to get everything nice and hot - helps burn off deposits.

That's a new one on me!

[ToyotaAuris]

Cat? Firt things first, take it on the motorway and give it a blast. Take it up to 90MPH if possible for some time and it'll clear everything out. My engine light comes on for the same thing on a Toyota, I just give it a blast and wa-la' all gone. Plus, it doesent harm your car or anything if your cats not working. It'll just fail MOT. You can use something like Cata-clean or some products, but i wouldent worry.

[DanLB]

I dont want to keep paying for the light to be turned off though , would an MOT tester just ignore any warning lights and carry out his usual tests?

[gjnorthall]

Illumination of some warning lights will result in an MOT fail - but not in your particular case. If it is the cat that's shot - the car may fail on exhaust emissions. It's easy to turn off the engine light with a fault code reader (from around £10) but obviously the light will return if the initiating fault is still present.

[ToyotaAuris]

Okay so 1 week ago I had MOT. Car failed as the engine light came on. So I looked at the code and it was that stupid catalyst. the emissions past so I dont know why it kept coming on. So I cleared code, mechanic did emissions test and passed by far and retested and its done. By your self a code reader from eBay for £10, saves alot!

[gjnorthall]

There are warning lamps which if illuminated will result in an MOT failure. However the engine check light being illuminated wouldn't result in a fail - provided the underlying fault didn't result in another issue eg exhaust emissions being out of range. Obviously, it's not a wonderful idea to drive around for longer than necessary with the engine light illuminated.

[DanLB]

Quite , you never know what else may have gone wrong , still undecided what to do , MOT is in January , do i get the best price i can now , or wait till the MOT run it hot as i can and feed it cataclean through the next couple of months and see what happens , could just be putting off the inevitable!

[ALake]

I'm usually pretty sceptical about snake oil solutions like cataclean, but when my wifes car *just* scraped through its emissions test on the MOT and I was told it would need a new cat for the next year, I thought 'why not' and bought a bottle of cataclean for about £11 on eBay.

Bunged it in and the next year it sailed through and the emissions report (same MOT station) showed it a drop of a substantial amount. I know someone whose EML light came on in their 2001 vectra for similar reasons and cataclean sorted that out.

I've got no association with them, and I'm still sceptical but for the sake of a tenner it might be worth a try!

[Conrod]

An Italian tune -up is a swift run up the motorway to get everything nice and hot - helps burn off deposits.

That's a new one on me!

Italian decoke as it was called at the jaguar garage ! V12 Jaguar's would clog up due to not being reved up enough, road test involved hanging it in 1st and 2nd gear, blast down the bypass watch all the black soot come out the exhaust in the mirror...that is an Italian decoke :)

Back to the RAV4 problem, several options...second hand cat of eBay or replace the other sensors in the cat.

With that mileage I would be very surprised If any of the sensors will come out now :(