My son's Punto failed its MOT weekend before last on a couple of items--radius arms and emissions.
We sorted the radius arms with a lot of grunting and groaning, were advised that Cataclean might sort the emissions, because the readings were a relatively marginal fail, so we duly put some of that in the tank and gave it a run.
Yesterday (Sat 8th) took it for retest and again it failed on the emissions, though it was slightly better. It's going in for diagnosis tomorrow to try to identify the problem, but I'm a little confused at the persistent failure.The car has been regularly serviced, plugs, oil changes, filters etc, it had a new cat back in March and yet the cat appears to be rattling as if its breaking up already.
Naturally I'll be returning the car and requesting a replacement cat if it the diagnosis indicates that it HAS failed, but the mechanic at the MOT garage said that if the cat proves to be the problem, the exhaust centre may try to wriggle out of replacing it by insisting theres a blockage which is down to the car and not the quality of the cat, which was indeed suspiciously cheap.
What rights would we have if this happened,given that meantime we only have a few days to sort out the MOT before the deadline passes for free retests and the temptation may be to simply have the cat replaced again if the exhaust centre wont foot the bil?
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"Exhaust centre" cats are the bane of my life.
Think of them as "one week" cats that are intended to allow a trader to scrape an MOT - just before selling the thing. That's about how long the coating lasts....
SOGA covers you for "merchantable quality" - but they'll always have some smart answer as to the cause of the premature failure. Sadly; proving them wrong over a £30 cat is probably not cost-effective.
What were the fail-sheet emissions figures - all of them.
It's always worth checking the oxygen sensor's reading - hot - to get a glimpse of what's going in.
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Thanks for responding, S.
I wish the cat HAD been just thirty quid--it was nearer ninety, but I'm still wondering just how good it was.
The emissions figures are as follows, for the retest:
Fast idle test, fail:
CO level 0.51% fail
HC level 120ppm, pass
Lambda 1.02 pass
Second fast idle test, Fail:
CO level 0.56 % fail
HC level 127 ppm, pass
Lambda 1.02 pass
Natural idle test, fail:
CO level 0.66 fail
All the readings were better on the retest following the use of Cataclean,but I dont know if thats significant at all.
I would have copied and pasted the whole sheet, but theres a problem with my scanner. If you want any of the other info from the sheet, let me know.
Cheers.
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Yes; those figures are not incompatible with a cat fault - although a proper diagnosis would require 4-gas testing and a whole battery of other tests.
Have you priced a genuine cat - if one is required? Rubbish cats are not always cheap, it appears.
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sq
I did get some prices when we first discovered that the old one was knackered, but ninetyish quid was by quite a long way the best price we got. I suppose there may be obvious reasons for that, depending on the results of the analysis tomorrow.
Hopefully in a day or so I'll have a better idea whats wrong, as well as having a considerably lighter wallet.
Thanks again. (:0)
Edited by Pugugly on 09/11/2008 at 23:14
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Diagnosed yesterday--turns out to have been the lambda sensor, and not the cat after all.
Being done today, together with retest..hopefully thats going to be the end of the matter and the last of the expense on this car till we sell it. As if...its a Fiat.
Smashin little car when it runs well, though. Wish we'd had it from new, I bet it went like the proverbial off a shovel.
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