Help!!! trouble with Catalyst Converter!!! 96 Ford Taurus?

Question

I drive a 96 Ford Taurus LX V6 3.0L and my catalyst converter is going bad. I was told it would be about $1500 to fix. Is it really this expensive to fix a catalyst converter? How do you fix/replace them, and why is it so expensive? please help me.

Answer 1

what state are you in? in California you are required to use an approved catalytic converter on any 96 and newer vehicle. for about 95% of applications the only approved catalytic converter is the one that is available from your Ford dealer.

Answer 2

that may be a little on the high side depending on the engine but yes these converters are expensive due to the fact they have 3 converters, 2 pre-cats and 1 main cat and its sold as an assembly. check with your local exhaust shop, some of these are available from after market sources, but I have had trouble with a few after market cats causing the check engine light to come on. what I would suggest is try to make a deal with an exhaust shop that if the after market cat (if available) does not work properly that they will apply the cost of it to replacing it with the factory cat. good luck.

Answer 3

yeah shop around. Also you might want to try smaking it with a RUBBER mallet to help fre up some of the carbon that is plugging it up. I would call an exhaust shop that is owned and operated by someone locally. I know it's just cutting out the old one and doing two welds on the converter. It's the converter that's going to cost you.

Answer 4

It is Catalytic converter. they cannot be fixed. Only replaced. It is plugged. I just had mine changed one month ago for $750.00. Shop around.

Answer 5

They are expensive , However if it is going bad it will get worse, Get it changed and feel the power it will get better when you have it changed, Hope this helped.

Answer 6

test your O2 sensor first.