P0420 troubleshooting- Prius 2006

In New York City under the current climate of government BS I would think you should be able to apply and pay for a rider given the fact that two cats two sets of sensors etc haven't yielded any satisfaction but yet the car have put on a sniffer or an exhaust gas analyzer falls well within the range of a clean automobile for the year of manufacture these are important things to note If those are the cases then you should be able to get a rider It may cost you a hundred bucks or something but you should be able to get that because your car is clean your car is functional and running and checking correctly for the year of manufacture. That's how I see it anyway here in North Carolina I can get a rider if I meet that criteria that criteria requires a printout and numbers whether they come from the car and or an exhaust gas analyzer check the I pay for from a place that's got the equipment to do that and does that like an inspection station I have had a rider in the old days for other cars in this state and at that time one of my cars had a gutted catalytic converter but was installed on the car to look like the converter was in place and the numbers coming on the sniffer were still within range for the year making model of the vehicle so they gave me a rider not even knowing that the cat was gutted.

 

No noise that I can tell.

No I drove through a big puddle on a highway.

I will see if there is even such a thing as a rider. Never heard of one, but never had this issue before either. Thanks. Someone said that maybe because the car is burning oil, it is harming the cat. Could that also be correct?

Checked out the rider option, most mechanics won't do it because the NY DMV puts them through hell.

 

In Western Massachusetts I had to go to the DMV with a failed inspection and ask for the rider The mechanic had nothing to do with it other than failing my car on the statewide inspection computer system so that when I get to the DMV they can see my car failed I have a paper saying it failed and then I show them the numbers on the sniffer and then they look that up for the year of the manufacturer of the car and they realize oh yeah the things running clean everything's good to check engine lights on because the cars a tard. One year rider granted

 

Yes excessive oil burning will certainly clog any cat not just one on a Prius one on any car with one with a cat. So that's got to be addressed now even on a brand new cat if you start bathing it in oil if your car is burning it that bad don't put the cat on gut it. Then install it gutted nothing to clog then and if you play the game with O2 sensors and like on a regular Corolla this can work and put the light out there's something to do with the catalytic converter testing that the Prius does everyone the guy here says it does it that is what's failing and setting your code more than likely so they engineered the system to fail you know seemingly right around 100,000 mi people start getting this catalytic converter below threshold code and then no matter what they replace it with even the dealer has had trouble with this so good luck try to get a rider from the given state you're in that's your best bet with this If you're not polluting the planet and the car's not smoking you stand behind it and you don't die etc etc pretty much points to you're probably in good shape to ask for that especially when nobody has any answers and can't get any parts that should generally be good enough for your state if you're burning four quarts of oil every thousand miles obviously you're not going to qualify.

 

Back here in post #17, you said:

so you can see where this gets confusing.

In any case, if you did go through deep enough of a puddle I guess water could have made its way into some electrical/electronic part and maybe be the cause of some kind of damage.

If you or a competent mechanic works through the diagnostic procedure for P0420, you should uncover any failed parts of the system.

And not to belabor the point, also keep in mind mr_guy_mann's point about exhaust leaks. A poor running engine can also cause cat issues, not to mention again heavy oil burning.

 

Thank you for explaining this. Looks like I need to check a few things, and maybe the actual engine among them. The car has over 240k miles on it. My understanding is that burning oil is par for that course. And then today I started getting the red triangle with some message about the transmission and I should park on level ground and put on the parking break. I hope it's not time to part with my favorite car I have ever had.

 

Did you have the door open with the car in D?

 

Nope ... was standing at a light. Pretty sure this is a battery issue since my car has had a dead battery 3 times in the last few months. I kept thinking it was because I hadn't been driving much. But now that I have looked around here, I think Mavis sold me a bad battery last year.

 

The triangle was the ogm battery.

 

FYI- if you have pretty much any kind of inspection, then they are going to plug into the OBD port to check codes and monitor status.

The monitors are self tests that the ECM performs to check function of the emissions systems on the car. Clear the codes and the monitors reset. Drive the car and the monitors (eventually) will run. If a monitor fails then it sets a code - and the check engine light.

Short form, if you clear codes right before inspection, the car will fail because all the monitors will be "incomplete". The system was designed to prevent exact what you want to attempt.

Sorry, but you're gonna have to "fix" it to get through inspection.

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