98 vw beetle failed emissions and needs new cat converter 140,000 miles on car also oil leak fix or trash??

Question

fix or trash

Answer 1

A new cat will be $190 to $250. Fix the oil leak. Think about the $500 to $700 you will spend is equal to 1 to 2 months of a new car payment!

Answer 2

If you let your oil repeatedly get thick and black between changes then it would take a motor flush to get rid of the excessive sludge build up in the oil jacket. And, the throttle-body is another place the sludge builds up and would need to be cleaned. City driving lets the deposits build up in the cat convertor and a nice drive of at least an hour on the freeway every month or two helps burn off these excess deposits/soot. I've seen many 4-cylinder city driven cars just die when the exhaust pressure builds too high between the cat convertor and the head. Sometimes they blow the exhaust manifold gasket. Make sure your air filter isn't ancient and plugged up. I've seen that before and people wonder why there car is so sluggish and their mileage so poor. New air filter and they think they have a new engine! LOL!!! There are some fuel additives that can boost your chances of passing a tailpipe emissions test. Regular fuel additive treatments seems to work well if you use them as directed like Gumout once every 3,000 miles. Don't go overboard on the once every 3K additives or you'll burn up the valves. If the piston to bore spec's are way past spec then the engine would have to be overhauled to pass any emissions test. Your oil consumption would be very noticeable (high) if this were the case. Good Luck!

Answer 3

you can take the car to an aftermarket muffler/exhaust shop to have a cat converter cut out/ new one welded in. the part from a vw dealer almost certainly will be around $800. put enough vw cats on to know that. the cost for that (aftermarket)probably will be 250bucks or so. as far as the oil leak, dunno what is leaking, so cant help ya there. if it's something relatively simple like a valve cover, then it'll be around 250-300 bucks (at a dealer) to fix that. i'm probably figuring a little hi here. asdd it up. and for around 500 bucks, you can fix alot of problems. i say fix it. but then, i haven't seen the car to know how trashed the rest of it is.

Answer 4

i own a repair shop ,and it sounds like this one has been a good car for it to have that many miles on it,,and only a few problems with it,,so id say to fix it,,besides that the cost of new car is going to be high right now,and those little cars last a lot longer than that so if it were me id repair it,,it should last a few more years anyway,and id say if you get all the small things repaired on it it will at least last another 3 years,,good luck with it ,i hope this help,s.,,and have a good x-mas.

Answer 5

If it's been cared for, the car should have many many more miles in it. If it hasn't, then maybe it IS worn out. I would have to at least consider repairing it.