Hey guys,
I'm looking at replacing the original cats on my Vogue SE, they still work fine but the pipes are getting too old after 210,000 miles - starting to blow a bit, and unlikely to pass the next MOT.
Anyone got any advice or experience of the available cats - I've been quoted over £1,500 + VAT for genuine Land Rover cats, which doesn't surprise me, but are the cheap aftermarket ones any good? Are there better quality cats available without going genuine LR?
Maltings Off Road, https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/262391772282 seem to last pretty well.
Had similar pipe issues on my Yamaha GTS1000, a known design problem due to the inlet pipes being mild steel welded stainless steel catalyser box. Obviously the pipes corrode and leak or break off.
Standard fix is to have new stainless steel inlet pipes made and welded to the catalyser box. Cost me £180, including carriage both ways, to have four new pipes made and welded on by a specialist bike exhaust fabricator. Which included making a jig. Clamps were extra. I chose Mikalor stainless band clamps as being bike appropriate. Bit spendy but I use them on cars too because they distort the pipes less than conventional U bolt ones so its (usually) possible to get things apart without cutting.
I imagine any half decent stainless steel car exhaust fabricator could do a similar job on your catalyser boxes for, probably, less money as much less jigging would be needed.
If not abused OEM cats seem to have very long lives.
Clive
For sure, OEM cats usually last for a very long time, particularly on good quality cars. Most of the aftermarket cats seem to be rather poor quality, although I can only assume the Euro 3 cats required on the late models are better quality since they cost at least 4 times as much.... can't imagine they will last like the genuine LR cats though.
That probably explains why a system for a GEMS is cheaper than the one for a later car. I've had one of the Maltings systems on my car for at least 4 years and almost 100,000 miles and it isn't showing any signs of rotting away yet.
The later ones have to be type approved as well, anything registered from 1st March 2001 has to be. Should in theory mean theres more precious metal content in them (equilivent to the original), also meaning they are more effective but more expensive at the same time.
The cat (being one of the hotter bits of the exhaust) also doesn't suffer from condensation as much as the bits further back, so I find they don't tend to rot so quickly either.
Thanks for the replies guys - Mine is 2002, so they need to be type approved. Scrap value of the old ones will be several hundred pounds, and new genuine ones will last for another 200,000 miles or more, so that's one option, or new type approved aftermarket cats about half the price - does the insurance cover cats if they're stolen? Perhaps I should contact them and find out....