Cat advice please!

[Ferret]

Okay a little bit of the story first:

The exhaust on my 540i hangs down a bit as one of the front mounts has gone... as a direct result I keep smashing the cats up on the mamoth speedbumps that infest our housing estate.

As I keep smashing it, it's pulling the manifold to downpipe joins apart and I've got a leak going on under there somewhere that's making the cars right bank rasp under full power.... not good!

I suspect the ceramics inside the cats are shot to **** now, you can hear them rattling away when the car's ticking over. Add to the fact that the car had a misfire problem just after I picked it up (due to two loose spark plugs,) I suspect the right hand cat may be restricting/melted.

As the back end of the exhaust is leaking horrifically I'm now thinking about changing the full exhaust system + both cats + lambda sensors.


These guys: http://www.cats-direct-shop.co.uk/ have cats listed at incredibly cheap prices... if you look here (http://www.cats-direct-shop.co.uk/bmw-catalytic-converter.php?pageNum_Recordset1=5&totalRows_Recordset1=129) you can see two types listed, ceramic and steel cored - does anyone know what the difference is, and whether its worth going for the steel cored ones instead?

A balanced view on this would be appreciated rather than a 'duh! ... ' type comment :D

£129 + vat isnt a bad price at all for a cat in this country :)

May be able to find it cheaper elsewhere, but suggestions anyone?

[attack eagle]

I strongly recommend having two cats, so they keep each other company ad can play with each other when you are not around.

I recommend putting the cats inside the car and not affixing them to the bottom. Though they do sleep a lot this type of forced exercise and exposure to heat and fumes is probably frowned upon by PETA and your local government.

My cats don't have any ceramic in them, sounds like you should use unbroken crockery for their food and water bowls.


IN short you sound like you are incredibly abusive to your feline companions... perhaps you should go catless???

[Pang]

The ceramics in my cats were also shot to ****.Although illegal in my country I had the cats removed and a straight piece of stainless pipe welded in.The free flowing exhaust was immediately noticable.The fumes outside the car were immediatly noticable also.Unless detected I will not be replacing the cats,the improvement is to good.

[whiskychaser]

£129 + vat isnt a bad price at all for a cat in this country :)

I thought it wasnt bad till I realised you need two. And that you are talking about putting in a complete system:( then it didnt look so good any more. Not very constructive but your wallet has my sympathy. And this is what you could have been looking at before you moved :) :

[shogun]

That is pretty cheap, I believe you cannot get them cheaper in other EU countries.
In Germany it is getting now popular that companies specialize on cat recycling, which is using the old cat housing, open the cat housing, remove the old core, insert a new core of either ceramic or metal, weld again, put on some rust protection on the welding, ready.
Usually done in one day, price for one side (1 core) of a 540 about 300 EURO.
Comes with a warranty.

[BMWDriver]

I strongly recommend having two cats, so they keep each other company ad can play with each other when you are not around.

I recommend putting the cats inside the car and not affixing them to the bottom. Though they do sleep a lot this type of forced exercise and exposure to heat and fumes is probably frowned upon by PETA and your local government.

My cats don't have any ceramic in them, sounds like you should use unbroken crockery for their food and water bowls.


IN short you sound like you are incredibly abusive to your feline companions... perhaps you should go catless???

Lol !

[Robin-535im]

Cat advice for a Ferret...

Stay away if possible... See if you can enlist a dog to help... Maybe a white stripe down the back so the cat thinks you're a skunk...


:)