Unofficialbmw.com

kyshadetreebmw · Joined: 16 Apr 2003 Posts: 849 Location: Berea, Kentucky

Hey team, I will be spending more time here now. My son's E30 got hammered in a parking lot crash a couple weeks ago and he now is the excited owner of a 1998 328is. It is a very nice one with 140K. Paid $4K. The first issue is that the previous owner had a check engine light on and the dealer identified the problem as catalytic converter, quoting her a $2K repair of said catalytic converter. (hence the good deal at $4K).

But as my name would suggest, I am thinking of putting a catalytic converter from one of my E30 parts cars on the E36. Am I incorrect in thinking that this will work? Seems to me that it should be OK. We do not have emissions testing here, so I am not worried about minor exhaust variances, so long as the engine performs OK.

PJK

I think that your e36 is late enough to have pre and post cat O2 sensors. The pre cat sensors keep the O2 levels at the point where the more sophisticated cat can do its job. The post cat sensors verify that the cat is doing its job. I don't think the older cat will keep the post cat O2 sensors happy so you will get an error message.

Phil

kyshadetreebmw · Joined: 16 Apr 2003 Posts: 849 Location: Berea, Kentucky

thanks! I thought I saw info about multiple 02 sensors. Do the post cat sensors only report an error alert or do they also affect air mix? I was also wondering about the usual failure rate for these converters, as in how many miles is usual before fail. Anyone have info about common problems with being too rich causing early converter failure?

geminiys · Joined: 13 Oct 2004 Posts: 182 Location: SF, California

You can get aftermarket cats for non-California BMW's for about $500 a pair. They are a bit more expensive if California certified.

mif_slim · Joined: 28 Sep 2004 Posts: 967 Location: sacramento

Wow, havent been on this site for a couple of years.

Anyways, I have a 96 328iS and one reason why its sitting in the lot is because I still havent found a good cat for it. Price will never drop and I dont want to waste money on used ones. From your location, it seems that your not in CA so I think your lucky. Just purchase a cat on catgeeks.com or something and you can get them for 450-500. Im in Cali so I have to fork over 2k for mines. Good luck finding one.
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