406oc.co.uk

It's finally over! the car runs properly again, and all I had to do was spend even more money on it. Turns out the cat had started to break-down inside, restricting the flow of exhaust gas. I had never seen inside a cat before so I got my mate to cut it open for me, funny looking thing, and you could see where the honeycomb had started collapsing in on itself. Also put a new lambda in it to be on the safe side.
I think it might need a new rear silencer soon as its getting a bit rusty round the edges, also I have been told that when the cat breaks down it can block up the rear silencer (don't know if thats true though )

So if your car starts to play up on you like mine did, ask yourself how long the cat has been on the car and don't rule it out as the cause, I'm told they last 5 to 6 years. Funny, because when they first started talking about fitting them to cars many, many years ago they said they would last the lifetime of the car (yeah right!)

Again, thanks to everyone for your help and advice, you all helped me to STOP pulling out what little hair I had left!

Maybe it was the club sticker that helped it to get fixed, cheers again Dai

Good news. How much is a cat? out of interest.

I believe the one my mate fitted he got for £140, but I do know you can get them cheaper. There's a site that other people have recommended on these forums, and when I looked they could do a complete system including all the brackets and gaskets for about £120!! ( I don't know what the delivery charge was)

There address is-

http://www.onlineautomotive.co.uk

and a few people have said that they are very good

Would anyone know if a decat would work alright on a 406? does the ecu/lambda like it? I'd rather weld in a £5 piece of pipe rather than a load of dosh for a new cat!

James would be the person to ask about that, I think that someone has asked before and James said it wouldn't work because of back pressure or something!

theres no benefit of a decat on a 406 as you will loose a lot of low down torque, unless of course its a diesel or petrol turbo, where it will greatly reduce lag but on the petrol models they will fail the MOT emissions test, it wont affect the ECU or the lambda probe on a D8, but on a D9 it will flag the K light and limp home mode as the ECU will detect it as cat failure, as there isnt one