MOT catalyst fun
 

Just for your entertainment/pain, this is what remains of the cat that my garage pulled out of my 240 yesterday after it massively failed its emissions test on the MOT. I've had the car since September 2017, and it was last MOTd in January 2017, and has several passes before that. This cat was obviously 'trapdoored' (cut a hole, remove the internals, welded up) some time ago, and someone has been getting it through MOTs ever since! I really thought a lot of the crooked garages had gone in this country, but there must still be a few out there...
Anyway, I'm now £300 lighter and significantly grumpier. Nothing like a used car to keep you on your toes!

Look at the Polar Bears you’re going to save now you’ve got a working CAT again... ;)

TT

Not that I'm promoting pollution but could it not have been replaced with just a piece of pipe as the car was built before a certain date?

Unfortunately not - as a January 1993 registration it just falls within the mandatory cat period! Oh well, it's a small price to pay to keep the snow falling in Sweden.

I knew of a car (no names to protect the guilty ;) )that when it was picked up the tester said 'I had trouble getting it through the emissions, I had to put the probe in the exhaust of the car next to it'. That was caused by a faulty lambda sensor which the owner changed soon after.

Out of pure curiosity, why would someone go to the trouble of cutting a hatch into a cat, removing it's insides, then welding it back up?

Surely, given its going to fail on emissions anyway, if it's a short term botch, wouldn't it be cheaper to just put a straight piece of pipe in its place?

What CC engine has your 240 got ?
There are a few exceptions to the rule that cars on K reg and onwards had to have a cat text. My M reg 940 wentworth 2.0 doesn't. I happened upon the information whilst reading on another forum.

Here's what I posted in a previous thread on here about it....

https://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showp...8&postcount=20

Link to the Gov.Uk blah - https://www.gov.uk/government/public...-road-vehicles

MOT tester stepping forward again , People cut / gut & weld the Cat for the following , Reason for rejection :- A catalytic converter or particulate filter missing where one was fitted as standard.

https://www.mot-testing.service.gov....4s07000101.htm links you to our test manual & on the refusal certificate you will find the code 7.1.3.3 which links you back again to our reason for rejection ( failure )

People think that if the cat is still fitted ,even missing its internals , they can browbeat us into issuing a pass , NOT going to happen ! .

So far last year I have ruined the days of 15 individuals who have decatted their cars , throwing away the cat & getting stung at test time

I also enjoyed the "chat" with the owner of a recently DPF free car , who when told it had failed & why , glibly informed me it was a factory delete by the dealership ! .

Also remember the emissions tests are fairly automated with us doing no more than operating the throttle as required & the preprogrammed machines processing the exhaust outputs

I must admit, mine did seem to run better without one, but I wasn't stupid enough to put it in for a test like that. I'm now trying to decide whether to swap the replacement cat. back out, and save it for next year's test.