I don't understand how you can arrive at that conclusion about your tuner. I'm not saying it couldn't be, but just curious.

 

Ok ok ok, here is the deal... I went to the dealer and picked up an O2 sensor and when I got back home to put it on, I noticed that the sensor didn't get plugged back in after having the cat's welded in. My bad.....thanks for the input guys. You were right about that.

Now, as far as the cat's going out.....to my understanding, there is one of two reasons why cats go out. Either the engine is running rich or lean. If I am wrong, and I am sure a few of you think I am, then feel free to correct me. If I am right, then the only thing that I installed on my brand new truck that adjusts the air/fuel mixture is the SuperChips tuner. I agree that the muffler and/or filter would not ruin the cats. I do however believe that the tune from Superchips that DID adjust the air/fuel mixture was the source of the problem. Now, about two months ago when I had the truck in for service, I did have the truck reflashed (keep in mind that this is after the cats had gone bad). As a result, it put my tuner out of date and required me to send back my programmer to Superchips. In my opinion, the program was bad, superchips discovered it was bad in between the time that I bought the programmer and the time I sent it back to them for an updated program, and it would probably be fine now. However, I will not install the tune again because the only thing that could have caused the cats to go bad, in my opinion, was the programmer. If any of you can honestly say to me that a brand new truck could go through all the cat’s on our truck in less than a year because of “bad craftsmanship” or “defective parts” then I am a complete idiot. It’s simple, I installed a part on my truck that adjusted the air/fuel mixture, it was too aggressive and it burned up my cat’s. It’s the only logical explanation.

As far as my dealer, he did hook me up. I now live in LA and I went to three (yes three) dealers to have them look at my O2 sensor. Not one of them even considered doing anything to the exhaust under warranty. Period….If any of you live in LA and think that you can have your exhaust worked on under warranty after you install an aftermarket exhaust, you are mistaken. Unless of course you know someone, it will not happen. All in all, my truck runs great without this stupid programmer and I’m not touching another thing after this fiasco. Just a warning to all of you thinking about all these upgrades….

 

Nope, at least ten reasons Cats can go out.
1. Something hits it hard, like running over a rock.
2. An idiot muffler guy bangs them real hard. These are not the old bean style. The center is fairly fragile, and you reported noise from them.
3. Wrong kind of gas. Down in Baja I’ve seen a dozen cats ruined in one day. The local stations were pumping fully leaded premium as unleaded. Whoops, no biggie, most folks down there pull the cats anyway. Too bad about the tourists…
4. A bad additive. Some of the ‘octane’ boosters warn against cat damage if misused.
5. Acetone in large concentrations. That piece of nonsense is running around the forums and spam right now.
6. Timing too retarded. This causes the mix to be burning in the exhaust manifold rather than the cylinder. It’s frequently caused by bad gas, which forces the timing to retard too far. It’s sometimes a problem around the border towns, and other places where you can buy 76-81 octane fuel cheap.
7. Jumping a truck, like they do on TV. Converters don’t like that very much…
8. Too lean a mixture. Too rich a mixture reduces the efficiency of the cat, but you would have to run it for years before it clogged up. Wrong symptoms anyway, it wouldn’t make noise and the tailpipe would be coked.
9. Defect from the factory. It happens. About one in 1000 of ANYTHING is bad. That means maybe a thousand F-150 new models with a bad cat, or a bad whatever.
10. Perhaps there was nothing wrong with it. As an autoparts guy, I knew that fully 60% of the parts sold were not needed. And twenty to forty percent of parts returned were just fine. It’s worse now…

If the timing was too far advanced you would get ping. Lots of it. Tuners advance, not retard timing.
If the mix was too rich, you would not break or burn up a cat. Tuners richen the mixture, not lean it.




You need to learn a few things about how IC engines work before making these sweeping statements. That’s just a friendly suggestion.
Many dealerships in Southern California won’t work on your truck if you have aftermarket wheels. It is in the culture.

The Cats are covered by Federal Law which does not allow exceptions for CATBACK.

The point from the Catback is your own problem if you replace it, or the shop that did it. Why would Ford take responsibility for another shop’s parts and work?

 

I agree with Chris. I don't know much about the tuner but, it seems to me if it was doing something to the motor that would miss up the cat you would get a code. IMO

 

It’s Bush’s fault the cats went bad