Catalytic converter, change or leave alone? 230k miles

Just got my 02' Ram 1500 5.9 back from a complete remanufactured motor job. The guy that done my motor suggested as a precautionary thing to get a new catalytic converter put on since the truck has 230k miles on it. He said that a bad or stopped up catalytic converter will make the motor run hotter than it suppose to thus causing harm to my motor. Well I took it to my local muffler shop and they suggested I wait until my truck throws a light and that the truck will have a sensor saying that the cat is bad. The price on a new cat I priced there is $310 installed. Although that is alot of money I wouldn't mind spending it only if I absolutely needed to.

My question is, what to do? Should I go ahead and change the cat regardless or wait til my truck throws a light then get one put on? Or does these things throw a light well PAST the time it needed to be changed?

Just dumped $2600 in a complete engine rebuild and it's running great and I don't want to jeopardize this motor in any way.

Please note this truck had a Flow master exhaust installed prior to me buying the truck, it has 1 catalytic converter, then goes back into the flow master then splits into dual exhaust from the flowmaster back

My 2 cents and I am not a wrench so take it with a grain of Salt ! !
If it were me with that mileage and after dumping a few k$ in the rebuild I would complete the job with a new Cat since the old one has over 200k on it, Again there may be nothing left of the guts either ,
Is the rest of the exhaust system in good shape ? And as the saying goes pay now or pay later,Truck is laid up now so what a few more hrs !

The rest of the exhaust is not bad actually. While I was at muffler shop I did have them weld me on new chrome tips as mine both rusted and broke off.

Now as far as replacing my cat, to me that $310 sounds expensive, I'm an online guru and I have found many good parts for my truck online for less than half of the cost of parts stores. If I order one online I would just want to make sure I get the right one as I don't want to put the wrong one on. Are these things pretty universal or should I be real specific in choosing the correct one?

Any suggestions? I'm sure they wouldn't charge much to put one on

online can net you deals I got alot of MC parts online As I mentioned I am no wrench but the Cat as far as i know has to be sized right! The seller should be able to hook you up with the right one ! Hope the gear heads pop in to give you better advice

I'll be tagging along as I need to replace mine

I'm in a similar boat with a higher mileage set of cats.....had this kit suggested as a Best Bang for the Buck replacement for the cats....as you also get a high flow Y Pipe and it's all bolt in. I'm pretty sure this is the right kit for your '02 1500 5.9L:

Federal 23959

If you want 3" down pipes instead of the 2.5" in the kit above, this kit is an upgrade:

Federal 49188

Bigpoppa99 said:

Any suggestions? I'm sure they wouldn't charge much to put one on

Click to expand...

Just sharing a recent experience....cat burned up in a vehicle with 2 cats, similar to the HEMI powered Ram trucks. Bought a 'universal' replacement cat for $265 then, like you, figured...."Hell, an exhaust shop won't charge that much to install it". Turned out, $125 in labor, $22 in supplies and all said and done, that one cat cost $412 + tax. The other cat is still the original and if I replace it in the same manner, I'll have spent $800+ on the pair.



Looking at the Magnaflow cat replacement with Y pipe kits, like the ones I posted links to above, are a far better deal IMHO given I can do the work in my garage since it's all bolt on.

So, be careful with the thought that a universal cat won't cost that much to have welded in once you purchase it.