Cat is genuine, SMOG guy said it's tempered (in California)

Makes no difference who's right. He has the ultimate say and it's up to you to prove your case unfortunately.

 

This is what you get for living in places like that and that's why everything costs $5,000 no matter what it is You can't get a service guy out to look at your air conditioner for less than a couple thousand dollar commitment or some kind of nonsense It is ridiculous out there My brother has a multi-million dollar home in thousand oaks and it is quite the joke but if you got that kind of money then you can afford the joke around all you want I mean every time he has to have something done it cost it 10 times more than it cost me or more it is hysterical and for all that they're paying they're not getting a whole lot more than I'm getting way over here 4,000 mi away in North Carolina and they're truly not but as long as they think they are there you go I feel bad for you buddy because the little people are the ones that get shat on In places like that when you're well off it doesn't matter You just send it to another place somebody's doing all this for you when it's just you yourself and you you're stuck listening to some tobacco chewing idiot tell you what he believes course that's where we are in the country as a whole but yeah that's great stuff considering here where I live in my county there's no smog at all We figured that out a few years ago that this was a big joke and you know it was all on well people that it shouldn't be.

 

If it's Toyota assembly, each cat (upper and lower), directly on the bottom of the cat, will have a Toyota symbol and one will have EA6 and the other GD3 stamped in the steel. If there's a viewing window in the cat shield, they're usually positioned to allow viewing of those markings.

 

You'll need to take it to a "Referee Smog Station" now that it's been branded as tampered. It's your car and your responsibility - that guy was just doing his job. He could lose his license and livelihood if he passed an illegal car and got caught. He's certainly not going to waste his time playing 'phone a friend' and play he said she said for a $50-$75 smog job. Sorry; those are the facts.

You should've been given paperwork on how to appeal that ruling; if not read the documentation in your DMV renew envelope. The best thing to do is get your 'ducks in a row' before going to the Referee station. That means bring your insurance and repair paperwork to the Referee station. If the shop that replaced the CAT put in an illegal one - you can show that your a victim, not a perpetrator of a crime.

Hope this helps....

 

Due to the to theft crisis and Toyota Stealerships charging as much as $4K for genuine OEM, as well as them being backordered by six months California approved a very specific aftermarket cat in the $700 range that you can use and pass the smog test: California APPROVES Aftermarket Catalytic Converters! | PriusChat

So download that info and prove that they installed that type of Cat and tell rude smog dude "It's not my job to teach you how to be informed enough to do your job."

In the unlikely event the insurance company paid to have the wrong Cat installed you need to file a claim with insurance company for their failure to do a legally valid repair to the vehicle so they can pay to fix it.

 

When our Prius was smog tested, post cat theft and replacement, the guy looked carefully through a hole in the shield for the identifying marks mentioned in #4 above. If orange paint covered those marks he might not have been able to read them.

 

Tah dah