New Calatytic Converter?

[coltonb]

A lot of you will recall that I just had the engine in my '99 ES300 w/125,000 miles replaced due to sludging. Many thanks to you all for your advice on that one. Well, now apparently I'm told by the dealer that I need a new catalytic converter, though I'm not sure they've got their story straight. Here's the facts:

CEL & Trac Off lights came on (yesterday), 4,500 mi after engine replacement. Brought it in this AM, and was initially told by dealer that the code was P0130. Replacement = $1,300. When I pressed for more detail, they brought in the tech who diagnosed it, who said, sorry, it was actually code P0420. Sounded squirreley.

This may have no impact, but I had my first oil-change on the new engine 200 miles ago - and changed to synthetic. I always use 89 octane gas, usually from BP.

My questions are:

1 - Is catalytic converter failure at 129,000 miles abnormal?

2 - Is it possible that I only need to replace the sensor (as a p0130 would indicate), instead of the entire catalytic converter?

3 - Could the exhaust smoking associated with engine sludging have accellerated the demise of the catalytic converter?

Your thoughts and input is much appreciated. - CNB

[SKperformance]

If your engine smoked then it would have destoryed your cat ,case closed.

[coltonb]

If your engine smoked then it would have destoryed your cat ,case closed.

←

Thanks SK, but Lexus disagrees. They say there is absolutely no known correlation between the engine gelling and cat failure. I'd like to make that correlation clear to them. And it sounds like they replace very, very few of these, ever. So...

1 - what are possible reasons for catalytic converter failure?

2 - is there anyone else who's had this problem?

[VGR]

Catalytic converters have been around for 30 years and for 30 years it has been well known that the life of a Toyota converter ranges from 500,000 miles for a perfectly maintained engine to 75,000 miles for an abused and neglected engine. Your car has been abused / neglected (by the prior owner(s) and that's why the engine sludged and that's why the exhaust got smokey. Continuous smoke in the exhaust stream overheats and roasts the innards of the converter, sometimes causing them to get clogged which in turn hurts power and fuel economy.

[SKperformance]

I am not getting into the heglagent part as it seems to happen to properly maintained vehicles because of an engineering flaw of extreme heat build up sludging the engien ,not because it wasn;t changed on tiem which is the normal case. This is the reason they change the engine for free. So VGR you might need to redirect your ideas on this engine and its problems.

If an engine burns oil it smokes, it is second nature for a progressive burning of oil to coat the cat causing the reaction of unburnt fuel to stop activating the honeycomb as it is coated and cannot react with it to heat up .

Thus like every other motor which burns oil it kills the cat.

A motorvac might just bring the cat back if it is just dirty.

[coltonb]

I'll try a motorvac. Couldn't hurt.