Had some problems on the way home from work today... 03 4.2L V6. The engine was at normal tempurature and I was going about 65MPH, 1800ish RPM steadily when I heard a dull "bang" from just on the other side of the firewall in front of me. The engine ran the same an dthe drivability was the same but I pulled over ASAP. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, checked to make sure I had all my plugs, no fluid caps blew off, the tires and brakes looked fine and I am 99.9% sure I didn't hit anything.

Fast forward to when i get home and do a complete inspection and find no problems except my drivers side cat made a sound of something like a broken glass windchime you could hear in the distance(if that makes any sense). I'm out of warranty so I don't wanna hit the dealer if i can avoid it. Any ideas?

 

ive had a 94 z 28. i was constantly getting on it.long story short i blew a cat on the way to work and it did make a popping noise like a backfire. 2 minutes later thing overheated had to pull over. anyway take a rubber mallet and tap the cat and youll know if its busted inside.

 

I believe the cats are covered for a longer period of time than the rest of the warranty.

 

you can look online or at a local auto parts store for a replacement cat. not too hard of a swap. or you can find someone that will put a pipe in its place.

 

check you emissions warranty-emisson control parts ahve alonger warranty than the rest of the vehicle . for once our elected officials do something good for us

 

i think emissions parts are covered for 7 years or 70K something like that.

 

Sure you didn't just run over a mini-cooper?

 

Update from the original post:

Well after a trip to my local Ford store, I was again reminded why Ford "techs" are morons and why not to buy Ford products.

I droped the truck off giving the EXACT information I posted here thinking everything would be okay. The next day I call to check up on the truck and my advisor tells me that nothing is out of the ordinary, my truck was ready to roll, and I owed them 70 bucks.

Turns out they hooked it up to diagnostics, drove it, checked the underside and found nothing. One thing they did NOT do was actually pull anything to verify if the cat broke something from the inside. They did everything I didn't need them to do but not what I wanted.

Just needed to vent, but I forgot to mention the drivers cat is under warranty due to the fact I replaced it a few months ago. Still not happy with Ford... My first Ford was a lemon and this one isn't much better.

 

Well since you are so great in all your wisdom of Ford mechanics i thought you would know the diagnostics program can read how much your cats are flowing and tell you if they were clogged or not, so apparently your cats were flowing well enough for them not to be a problem, and if your cat was clogged then you definitly wouldn't have the power you used to, before you put down For and their mechanics why don't you try to have some knowledge of the issue!!!! just my 2 cents

 

damn i wish i could find a girl to bang on the highway

 

Could you elaborate on how this diagnostics works?

Thanks

JMC

 

Yeah they take readings from the front and rear O2 sensor to see how much is flowing through each cat

 

having trouble figuring out how flow is measured from a voltage signal that is converted to O2 per cent

i suppose that if the voltage differntial between the input and output sensors is betwen certain values then the assumption is that the cat has proper flow

 

yep, at least thats what my best friend who is a ford master tech told me

 

Ever think maybe your front tire just picked up a rock on the road and it hit the inner fender well???

Maybe you are making waaaaay too much of nothing? Maybe you are bashing Ford and Ford mechanics before you
actually know if they overlooked a problem that you yourself have no idea if it really is a problem? Sounds like
they did everything right. What if they cut off the cat and found nothing wrong with it and billed you $300 for the labor,
would you be more satisfied?