MEEPY just got home after having the catalytic converter replaced. I have less than 10k on her and I'm concerned I'll have another problem child like my dearly (and happily) departed Jetta.

Anyone else had any similar problems? The SA at Universal City MINI told me that he's only seen 4 replaced since 2005, but that could be a line, so I thought I'd check with you guys since I trust you more!!

 

What year is your MINI??

 

2007. Got it in November of 07. It could be that the SA was talking about his experience with R53. Has anyone else heard of any problems with R56's catalytic converter?

-dustin

 

How did you know it was bad ?

 

Bad cats happen, unfortunately - just like any part there are bad apples. Keep your eye on her, but a new cat may be the solution to your problem. If the dealer didn't uncover any codes other than catalyst, you're probably fine. If you had an underlying problem (misfire, running rich) that toasted a cat in less than 10k, you'd know and it'll happen again soon enough.

 

CARB (and by adoption, EPA) requires that a bad catalyst set a check engine light.

 

yes, this. It came on once about 1000 miles ago but went off on it's own. i assumed i didn't set the gas cap properly and dismissed it.

The SA said that the honeycomb in the cat was shattered, but I can't remember hitting anything or hearing anything funny. I live in LA and potholes are the only bumpy obstacle. I don't know how that could have happened. Weird.

 

It could have been dropped at the factory, or just been heat treated wrong from the get-go. As long as all the bits were contained in the cat (I've seen a Chrysler ingest a cat into the engine, but that's not really possible with a MINI) you should be good to go for a good long while (at least 120,000 miles) with a new one.

 

wonderful news, indeed. She's back to normal, so I don't see any reason to fret unless something else starts knocking around.

 

I think this could be what I could be running into...I have been throwing a cat code a few times...comes on, no change in engine/drive/etc, but throws code that eventually goes away...dealer read it and is investigating what needs to be done...Oct 07 build

 

Hmm, could be a epidemic. I also had a bad cat and had it replaced at 11k miles by my dealer, Sept 07 build date. Unlike checkercoop, My MINI had a bad case of low rpm spuddering and backfiring(kindof). My ScanGauge II gave me a weird code (U3FFF) when it went off.

 

its a known issue that bad cats were used in 07 and possibly 08

 

08 MC built in Jan or early Feb. No issues.

 

There are two cats which one went bad?

 

Everyone keep in mind that Cats are covered by warranty way out past the normal warranty. Required by law. SOmehting like 10 yrs/100K miles or something insane like that.

Won't apply to the 2nd gen crowd for a while, but useful to know

 

04 MC. My cat went out at about 10,000 miles, too. They told me at the time that they had never seen that problem.

 

I forgot to post on here about it, but I had mine replaced about a month ago. It definitely fixed it because the code has not come back. i was in the first week of october 07 build.

OXYBLUECOOPER,
Mine was the first cat with the headers.